Category Archives: Dreaming

Depression, Doubt, Dreaming, Growth, Knowledge, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Wellness, Writing

Just a Little Self-Awareness

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The past few years have given me plenty of time to reflect. No surprise there, considering my circumstances. But it’s revealed some hard truths that I’m having trouble reconciling. For a while now I feel like I’ve had a good understanding of who I am as a person. I’m the first person to admit that for most of my life I was severely lacking in the self-awareness department. But that changed once I started therapy. So much so that I feel like I was able to turn one of my greatest weaknesses into one of my greatest strengths. 

It seemed pretty cut and dry, so wasn’t something I questioned much… Until now. I’ve always been someone who spends a lot of time alone. As you would imagine for someone who’s as introverted as I am, much of the day is spent inside my head. Like many things in life, it’s a double-edged sword. When I lacked self-awareness and confidence it was a dark and dangerous place to reside. Negative thoughts circulated through my head without any sort of constructive release, which only made the rough moments even rougher. I was hard on myself and didn’t show myself any grace or give myself credit (I still don’t do enough of either, if I’m being honest). There was a lot of moping around and feeling sorry for myself. You know the story, I’ve been over it a number of times.

Therapy taught me how to use the time spent thinking in more productive ways. Which was extremely important. It would’ve been unreasonable to expect that I’d be able to stop myself from thinking so much, so best then to reframe my mindset instead. Rather than brooding and sulking, I began reflecting. This helped me develop the self-awareness that I had so severely lacked. Which in turn, allowed me to methodically evaluate each scenario and come up with a plan on how to move forward and improve. I believe that the self-awareness that I gained from that helped kickstart my mental health journey. 

This coupled with therapy allowed me to finally process past events in my life. Helped me let go of various traumas I was holding onto and move on from them. I was able to revisit past experiences and learn the lessons I was supposed to learn. Which surprised me at first—you wouldn’t think there’d be anything left to learn from something that had happened years or decades prior. But that’s not really true. If you keep ignoring your problems or keep running from adversity you’re only delaying the inevitable. There is only one realistic outcome for you with this approach: you doom yourself to repeating past mistakes and you give your issues room to fester and get worse. Until you learn your lesson, nothing is going to truly change or get better. So, at some point you will have to deal with the adversity head-on. It’ll hurt in the short-term, but you’ll be better off in the end. 

Unfortunately, for most of us, dealing with adversity directly is the harder thing to do. It’s actually relatively easy to take the “out of sight, out of mind” approach. It’s easy to pretend like things aren’t as bad as they are. It’s easy to lie to ourselves. To delude ourselves into believing that our issues aren’t so bad or don’t actually exist. It’s easy to just ignore everything that you don’t want to deal with. It might give us short-term relief, but these things will always come back to haunt us eventually—ignoring them didn’t magically make them disappear. So, the longer you delay, the more you’ll have to unpack. But instead of being able to deal with each small issue separately, in bite-sized pieces, it might hit you all at once like a ton of bricks. Not a fun time, to say the least. But there’s no one to blame but yourself. You have to live with the consequences of your actions (or inactions). Pointing the finger at others won’t do you any good. It might feel satisfying in the moment, but until there’s meaningful change within yourself there isn’t going to be any tangible progress or improvement. 

One sign of maturity is learning how to hold yourself accountable. It starts with owning up to your mistakes and having the awareness and humility to admit when you’re wrong. When I was a youngster I was a rather naughty kid. I wasn’t a bad egg per se, but my curiosity often got the better of me, and I liked testing boundaries and limits. On top of that, I wasn’t particularly sneaky nor was I a good liar. No surprise then that I often got caught. But more often than not, instead of owning up to it when my mom questioned me, I would either lie about it or feign ignorance. The last thing I wanted to do was take accountability. The most common phrases that came out of my mouth were, “I didn’t do it,” or “It was an accident.” She never believed me—and for good reason—so I always ended up with a worse punishment than if I had just told the truth. But did I learn my lesson? No I did not. The pattern repeated over and over and over again. It didn’t end until I was ten- or eleven-years-old when I decided to leave my naughty phase behind me once and for all. When I finally got tired of getting spanked. 

That was the first time in my life that I said, “enough is enough.” The first time I tried to make a conscious effort to change my behavior. And it worked for a while, but looking back on it now, I don’t think I had the right takeaway from all this. My motivation in doing this wasn’t centered around doing the right thing per se, but rather on avoiding punishment. The end result may have been the same, but the thought process was very different. Obviously, I was too young to understand the nuance, so this much only became clear to me in hindsight. If I had known the difference, would I have handled things differently? Maybe, maybe not. It’s not the most productive use of my time to speculate on this type of hypothetical situation. All I know is that this approach worked at first, and let me move onto the next phase of my life. It wasn’t until much later that maintaining this approach started to become a detriment. 

Either way, I didn’t learn how to truly hold myself accountable until much much later. My teenage years were filled with a lot of blame shifting, pity parties, and general anger at the world. I just didn’t have the awareness, willpower, or confidence to drill down to the root and find legitimate solutions for my issues. It was easier to play the victim than it was to be critical of myself or my behavior. This young version of me did not have the mental fortitude that I have now. I wasn’t a problem solver back then. I gave up too easily, and I kicked myself when I was down. I was already in a bad enough place psychologically that I probably wouldn’t have been able to handle any amount of self-evaluation even if I knew how to do it. No surprise then that all of this stunted my development. But I didn’t know any better. You live and you learn. 

Everything changed once I developed even an ounce of self-awareness. Obviously, therapy helped with that. But it’s not a magic cure-all. Whether you meet weekly or bi-weekly, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done on your own. Your therapist won’t be there to hold your hand throughout the week. They can’t help you if you’re not willing to help yourself. At first, you may not have the tools necessary to do this on your own. They will develop over time. But you have to use them regularly to keep them sharp. All of this is done with your mental health in mind. Nothing is impossible as long as your mind is healthy. The going is much rougher when it’s not. Again, this is where having some self-awareness will come in handy. 

Things will get better from there. You just need to have faith, self-belief, and determination. Developing self-awareness should lead you down a natural progression in your mental health journey. And I guarantee you’ll learn plenty of things about yourself along the way. You’re stronger than you think you are. Not as broken. You’re more skilled and capable than you think you are. Not as helpless. You’re more knowledgable than you think you are. Not as inept. Once you learn how to show yourself grace, start cutting yourself some slack, you’ll quickly see how much you’ve grown and matured. You’ve become more put together than you even realized. It might feel sudden, but it didn’t happen overnight. 

Your experiences change and mold you whether or not you make a conscious effort to do so. I think deep down your mind, body, and soul know what you need, and will guide you in the right direction. I guess that’s what intuition and human instinct are. The seeds are there, we just need to grow and develop them. We need to learn how to listen to our inner voice—it’s wiser than we give it credit for. And that’s where reflection comes in. Once you become more self-aware, once you learn how to be accountable, once you humble yourself, you’ll be able to evaluate yourself in a more objective way. You want to be hopeful but you also have to be realistic. In order to do that you have to be honest with yourself and know where you stand. If your opinion of yourself is too low you’re at risk of undervaluing your worth, not giving yourself the credit you deserve. This can have dire consequences for your self-confidence. If you’re too high on yourself you risk setting yourself up for disappointment, because there’s a higher chance of you setting unreasonable and/or unreachable expectations (amongst other things). It’s imperative then that you try to find a middle ground. 

Spending time reflecting will help with that. You’ll become more in tune with who you are. You’ll have a better understanding of what you need. And it’ll show you a clearer picture of how you fit in with society. Which all connects back to the self-awareness thing. Ultimately, all of this ends up being a great way of holding yourself accountable—a desirable trait. Generally, we want others to think of us as having high moral character. What this consists of varies based on who you ask, but for the most part we tend to gravitate towards people that are dependable, loyal, and kind. We like people that have integrity, are honest, and are respectful. Some of these traits are already ingrained in us. Maybe they were a natural part of our core personality. Maybe they were taught to us by our parents or our teachers. Maybe they came about due to some other reason. But even if you possess some or all of these traits it doesn’t mean you can’t keep improving in that area. If you’re a kind person you can be even kinder. If you’re honest you can be more honest. If you’re dependable you can be more dependable. 

There is no upper limit. That means that self-improvement is a never-ending climb. But that’s what we do it for, isn’t it? We’re trying to be the best version of ourselves each and every day. It sounds daunting but it’s rewarding seeing how much you’ve grown since the last week/month/year. Every so often you’ll want to stop and smell the roses. You’ll want to enjoy the view during your climb. But at some point you have to continue on your journey—there’s so much more for you to see. And I think maybe we lose sight of that. We bask in the glory so much that we forget what we’re doing it for. I sure as hell have forgotten. When I started writing it was because I had stories I wanted to tell, insight I wanted to give. I wanted to help people the best way I knew how—through my writing. But in order to do that I needed to make incremental improvements both in my craft and in my psyche. I needed to work towards becoming a better human day by day. At some point, I forgot to do that. 

At some point I started smelling myself so much that I forgot how much farther along I needed to go. I forgot that there was still so much that I didn’t know and so much more for me to learn. I forgot that there was still so much more room for growth. I saw the improvements that I had made in my writing and I thought that that was enough. But it wasn’t. Yes it filled me with confidence, and justifiably so. But the improvements I had made were only in one area of my life. I had hyper-focused on one domain to the detriment of other domains. Becoming a better writer didn’t help me become a better human, friend, son, boyfriend, etc. It didn’t make me a more qualified job candidate. It didn’t make me a better worker. It didn’t help me earn an income. Writing was and is a hobby that brings me joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction. But it’s nothing more, nothing less. I wish I would’ve realized this sooner. 

That way I wouldn’t have set everything aside to pursue a dream that’s not yet realistically attainable. Yes I still believe that I have the skill and talent to get to where I want to go—that self-belief does not waver. But at the end of the day, whether or not I get published isn’t totally within my control. I might be good enough, but I might not be lucky enough to get my big break. That’s just the reality of things. The odds are not in my favor. Intellectually, that’s something I’ve always known. But it wasn’t something that I wanted to accept. Instead, I had let my ego get the better of me. Confidence in one thing ballooned into confidence in all things. I took a concept that was nuanced and I made it black and white. 

What was meant to be two pursuits I had made into one—it was always supposed to be pursuit of a hobby and pursuit of a career. What was meant to be my side job I had made into my main one. What was meant to be my main one ended up being tossed aside. While I valued and appreciated the time off at first, it’s gone on for far too long. Whether or not I wanted to admit it, this was never going to be sustainable. If the goal of this sabbatical was to give me time to finish writing a book then I’ve failed miserably. If the goal was to give me space to raise the quality of my writing to an acceptable level then I accomplished that a long time ago. Either way, it’s run its course. I’m ready for my sabbatical to end, although I didn’t see it as a sabbatical at first. 

My one regret is that I did not react quicker. I refused to budge from the path that I had taken. I refused to open my eyes to my delusions. I should’ve started looking for a job a long time ago. Having a steady income would’ve better helped me navigate the ups and downs of my writing journey. I would’ve had something to fall back on if things didn’t go my way. I would’ve had a more solid foundation to build my confidence upon rather than depending on the ebbs and flows of my writing. But I’ve always been rigid and hard-headed. Even when I pivot I often pivot too late. If only reflection had shown me this. But the truth of the matter is, I wasn’t honest with myself. I wasn’t honest with my expectations. So reflection could only reveal so much… And now it feels late. It’s not too late, but it’s still late. Better late than never I guess. 

Changing, Discovery, Doubt, Dreaming, Growth, Healing, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness, Writing

A Mixed Bag

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I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for as long as I have. I guess I’ve just been going through some things mentally. No reason to worry though, as my emotional state is good—I’m happy and stable. But something still feels off. Lately, I’ve found that I’m not as excited or enthusiastic about my writing journey as I was previously. I wouldn’t quite call it burnout or writer’s block, since I am still writing daily, even if I’m not doing it on here. But in truth, I don’t really know what I would call it. 

Unfortunately, it’s been a year full of disappointments, which affected me more than I was willing to admit. I’m not really the type of person to complain about things though. If I’m upset about a circumstance I’ll either suck it up and deal with it, or try to find a way to improve it. I pride myself on my problem solving and adaptability, which normally help me come out on top. However, that was not the case this time around. It seems that none of what I tried this year ended up working. While it wasn’t a terrible year per se, nothing ever really swung my way. It’s been more of a mixed bag than anything, so it’s not like the year was a complete disaster—there are still some small blessings to be grateful for. Here’s to hoping that 2025 will be better. 

For the longest time now, my therapist has started each session with the same question, “How are you doing, Justin?” For a while, my answer used to fluctuate greatly from not good to triumphant and everything in between. No surprise there considering my emotional state back then. I wasn’t even-keeled like I am now. I didn’t have the self-awareness that I have now. I didn’t show myself grace or acceptance like I do now. I let bad moods linger and snowball. I allowed my stress level to build and build and build. I didn’t know how to control my anger or sadness all that well. I went through high highs and low lows. My life was a whole rollercoaster of emotions, without a real centerline to return to. I was either elated in the moment but without any lasting joy. Or I was upset and disappointed, with nothing in between. 

That much has since changed. I’ve learned how to accept and process my emotions for what they are, positive or negative. I’ve learned how to regulate them better. Be the one in control of them, rather than letting them control me. Happiness, sadness, anger, are all inevitable parts of life—every emotion is. You can’t just avoid your sadness or anger because you don’t like how they make you feel. Ignoring them or pretending like they don’t exist will only make you ill-prepared for the next time you feel that way. Like many things, I learned this the hard way. Each time I felt anger bubble up I would feel ashamed of it. Every time I felt sad I would beat myself up for it, and end up feeling worse. My life for two and a half decades was riddled with guilt. I had conditioned myself to believe that both of these emotions needed to be avoided at all times. I believed that even the smallest inkling of them was a sign of weakness.

It wasn’t until a few months into therapy that I realized the wrongness of my approach. For the first six months or so, my therapist spent the first fifteen minutes of every session going over one specific emotion in an objective and unbiased manner, in hopes of separating me from my misconceptions. She started out with giving me the definition of the word, which led into thought exercises such as word associations, talking about proper and improper ways to react to said emotion, and other things. Her goal was to get me to accept and embrace all of my emotions, regardless of if I had a positive or negative perception of them. And it worked! But it took some time for me to get there.

Finding my way back to a healthy mindset was a multistep process that took a lot of time and energy. It wasn’t instantaneous like a lightbulb turning on or off. It took a lot of understanding, a lot of breaking down and building up, a lot of self-acceptance to get me to where I am today. But most importantly, it took years of therapy to uncondition myself from my old mindset, and recondition myself into my new one. If you compared who I am today with who I was ten years ago it would be like comparing night and day. You would find two vastly different individuals. But I didn’t change overnight. I didn’t transform from a naive, depressed, twenty-three year old straight to a confident, knowledgable, and calm thirty-three year old. I got from here to there in small increments. I took a few steps forward, a few steps back. I made a few mistakes, I learned a few lessons. But most critical of all, I showed myself grace regardless of the outcome.

I started to accept all parts of me rather than hiding certain things. I stopped trying to suppress interests that I thought clashed with the image I was trying to portray. When it came down to it, the most important bit wasn’t other’s perception of me, but rather, who I actually was. Was I staying true to myself? Was the image of me a genuine portrayal of who I was? Was I proud of the person I had become? For the longest time, the answer to all of these questions was, ‘no.’ I realized through therapy that I was spending way too much time on maintaining the facade. I was wasting energy on this pretense when it would’ve been more productively spent on bettering myself and improving my situation. This led me to a second realization: that the biggest disservice was to myself. The person I hurt the most with these lies was me.

The truth of the matter was that a large part of me was afraid of what life would look like without the facade. For many years, it was part of a safety mechanism that I’d put in place to protect myself. It was a way for me to cover up my biggest sensitivities. To prevent myself from becoming too vulnerable in a relationship—as a shy kid who had a hard time making friends, losing a friendship was one of my biggest fears, so I kept my distance and built up walls (little did I know that it often backfired, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy). It allowed me to minimize the “target” on my back by suppressing my nerdier tendencies. It helped me mask my lack of self-confidence. I was able to live in a bubble, pretending like things were fine when they weren’t. It allowed me to continue ignoring my problems, to shove them into a deep corner of my mind where I didn’t have to deal with them.

But as I’ve stated several times before, “out of sight, out of mind” ends up doing more harm than good. By ignoring your issues and shoving them off to the side, you give them room to fester and grow, outside of your purview. Pretending like problems don’t exist doesn’t fix them or make them go away. The problem is still there whether or not you want to acknowledge it. The only way to fix a weakness or a flaw is to face it head on, to address it directly, to admit that it’s actually there. Once I accepted this, I was finally able to move on with my life. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step is admitting that you have a problem—something that’s relevant to life in general. 

Once you make this first admission, everything else starts to come into focus. I was able to admit that I didn’t have all the answers and that I needed help. I was able to come to grips with who I was and accept me as I was. And with that acceptance came confidence that I’d never known before. Rather than letting my circumstance dictate the way my life unfolded I finally felt in control for the first time. I was able to rely more on my strengths, and work on my weaknesses. All of this helped me mature into an adult. And I couldn’t have done it without therapy. 

I owe my life to therapy. It rescued me from the darkness inside my soul. It saved me from an untimely death. It liberated me from a life of mediocrity. It gave me purpose again. It gave me courage to face the gloom that clouded my mind. It gave me the strength to face my fears. But most importantly, it taught me self-awareness. It taught me how to be confident. It taught me how to rediscover my passion. Without therapy my life would’ve turned out differently. Without it I wouldn’t be adequately prepared to face what life has to throw at me. So even though 2024 was full of disappointments I can still move on. I can continue chasing my dream. The dream doesn’t change, but how I get there might. So all I have to do is keep an open mind. Be adaptable like I’ve always been. It’ll all come together eventually. 

Art, Changing, Dreaming, Family, Greatness, Growth, Poetry, Writing

No Good Son

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Sometimes I feel like I’m a no good son
Don’t always treat others the way that they deserve
Don’t always respect the parents that gave me life
Don’t always cherish the time spent with family
Don’t always value the friendships that I have

Sometimes I feel like I’m a no good son
Taking too much for granted
Not taking advantage of my strengths and skillset
Not making the most of my opportunities
Sometimes it feels like I’m just wasting time

Although I know that it isn’t true
My time out of work has been of tremendous value
I’ve learned new skills and worked on my craft
The writer I am is leaps & bounds above the writer I was
And yet I still have to wonder

In the blink of an eye three years have past
Could I have come back last year?
Would things have turned out differently?
It’s been a year of disappointments
Could it all have been avoided?

But I won’t dwell too long
Because I have to move on
Twenty twenty-four wasn’t the year for me
But I will make the most of twenty twenty-five
Whatever I do, it’s gonna be the year that I thrive

Time to find a day job again, but I’m not giving up on my dream
I’d like to do more with my life than just merely survive
Sometimes I feel like I’m a no good son
Doing nothing but wasting my time
But I know it’s all a lie

No one said that being an artist is easy
It’s a life full of pain and hardship
One where sacrifices need to be made
I’ve been blessed and lucky to have the support that I have
Lord knows not everyone has that

I won’t ever know what it’s like to starve
What it’s like to create without the comfort of a home
But my family has given and given and given
It’s past time to pay it all back
To become financially independent once again

I will be a published author one day, but now is not that time
Adaptability and a willingness to pivot is the name of the game
I’ll find a way to support myself
Work by day, and write by night
Time to set aside my pride, and get back to the grind

Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Writing

Hermit Mode

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I’ve often heard that being an aspiring author is a solitary profession. Maybe you’re still learning how to write or you have a work in progress or you’re struggling to find an agent or perhaps you’re going the self-publishing route and need to learn marketing skills. Whatever the case may be, you find yourself stuck in limbo. You haven’t broken into the industry yet, but writing isn’t just a hobby for you anymore. It’s become a habit, a passion, a lifestyle. Your day doesn’t quite feel complete if you haven’t spent time honing your craft. I know that feeling full well, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be here on my soapbox. 

I knew going into this that it would be a reclusive endeavor, but I guess I just didn’t know to what extent. I’ve always been rather solitary (not necessarily by choice)—feeling like I was on the outside looking in, like I was out of place, like an outcast. I’ve always been rather misunderstood. None of these feelings are new to me, but I didn’t realize that these feelings could, in fact, deepen. I didn’t know that I could be more misunderstood than before. More alone in my pursuit. But knowing what I know now, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. Without a “finished” product, very little is understood of what it is I’m trying to do. Until I transition from merely a writer to an author, no one is going to know who I am or care about what I do. That’s a hard truth that I’ve had to learn, and am still learning.

That fact is more clear to me now than ever. No one cares about what I have to say until I have a story to sell (and even then there’s no guarantee of interest). It’s been tough to reconcile that, but I think I’m finally starting to get over it. The reconciliation, however, is a cyclical process. Unfortunately for me, I keep falling for the same trap. I approach each new endeavor with optimism and enthusiasm, only to be met with disappointment when things fail to live up to expectations. For a while, I thought my mistake was setting my expectations too high, so I lowered them each subsequent time. Sure, this probably had something to do with it, but it wasn’t the root of the issue. My original mistake was setting any expectations to begin with. By doing so, I was constantly setting myself up for major letdown if things didn’t play out the way I envisioned. And boy, have things played out much differently (so far). 

As I mentioned last post, I’ve been met with a steadily increasing amount of apathy and indifference. Which honestly, is a creative’s worst nightmare. We want to feel like our artistry matters. That we’re making an impact. We want feedback good or bad. We want engagement. We want to feel like our art is being seen and/or heard. Of course, I don’t write for recognition or accolades or what have you. I write because it’s good for me. I write because it’s what I do, and what I want to do. I write because I can’t not write. But still… I want a little something more. I want to be thrown the occasional bone for the effort and work I’ve put in—even if it’s something as small as a fishbone. 

But this is where we begin to drift into dangerous territory. Where do I draw the line between believing that my hard work will pay off, and expecting to be rewarded for what I’ve done? When does this stop being an ideal and start looking like entitlement? I’ve said before that meritocracy is a key component of my ethos and world view. I operate under the assumption that positive energy and action gets reflected back, in turn. Your hard work and consistency will pay off. Your effort will be rewarded. While I don’t know any of this for certain, it’s what I believe and it’s what I choose to believe. I’ve learned the hard way that my optimistic outlook isn’t necessarily the most realistic, but it certainly beats the alternative, which I’ve been through before as well. 

The truth of the matter is that we don’t live in a perfect world. Many things work in theory, but not in practice. More often than not, ideals are unattainable. For example, some of us strive for perfection, even with the knowledge that this is not something that we can reach. That however, will not prevent the perfectionist within from trying to reach towards flawlessness. I could write faster if I didn’t tinker/edit/nitpick/re-read as much as I do. But I just can’t help myself—sometimes my perfectionism gets in the way of my artistry. I wouldn’t want it any other way though; I take pride in my work, and as such, I hold myself to an incredibly high standard. I can’t half ass anything, or post content that I think is shoddy. My conscience won’t let me do it. There’s a baseline quality level that every artistic endeavor of mine has to reach. Maybe this is another way that I set myself up for failure. Maybe setting such a high standard contributes to making unreasonable expectations. 

That’s not something I know for certain either. But I do know this: it keeps me motivated. If I wasn’t constantly striving to write to the best of my ability, I’d remain stagnant, and never get to where I needed to go. Each day I’m getting better at my craft, little by little. Each day I’m learning, improving, and growing. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, because I don’t have all the answers. Instead, I’m figuring things out as I progress further in my writing journey. Sometimes I’ll have to ask for help, sometimes I’ll have to look stuff up, sometimes I’ll have to try new things. All of this requires me to step out of my comfort zone, which of course is easier said than done.

If you know me, then you know that I’m rather reserved. I’m your textbook introvert—I don’t do well in larger crowds, I spend a lot of time alone or in my head, I’m not super active on social media, I tend to clam up in conversations with larger groups, I might come off as aloof or standoffish. It might not seem like I care, but I actually care a lot. I care more than you know. That’s partially why the indifference hurts me so much. It’s a massive step for me to even put myself out there in the first place. Which makes it that much more devastating when all I hear are crickets. But as I said earlier, I’m learning how to cope with it. People will react the way that they react. That doesn’t change my approach or my process. At the end of the day, it’s all about what I can control—my effort, energy, and consistency namely. I just have to keep doing what I’m doing. Good things will come to me eventually. I still have faith.

When it comes down to it, I am my own brand. Everything that I do artistically—my fiction, my poetry, my essays/blog posts, my social media content—goes towards it. I need to do whatever it takes to continue to build it up. I can’t afford not to. If I don’t do this for myself then who’s going to do it for me? There are so many things I’ve learned in the past three years or so about writing, mental health, life. I have a lot that I can share. A lot that I want to share. I just need the platform. 

It will take time and energy for me to cultivate a following. I understand that. I also understand that at the end of the day this might not even be within my control. There’s a possibility that my dreams will never become a reality. That’s just how the math goes. It’s a harsh truth that I have to accept. But it doesn’t mean that I give up on my dream. It doesn’t mean that I put in less effort. I can’t focus on that—it’s putting the cart before the horse. I’ve done that before, worrying about the future rather than focusing on the present. I know how that story goes. It never leads to anything good, just inaction and undue stress. I need to control what I can control, and let it play out on it’s own. I don’t know the future, but I can tell you this much: if I fail it won’t be due to a lack of effort on my part. I will do everything in my power to try to get to where I want to go. If I put in the work but I still can’t get there, I can live with that—at least I tried. 

That being said, it’s back to the lab for me. Back to my den of seclusion, so that I can crank out quality work. No man is an island. We weren’t meant to live in isolation, but I think that’s what’s next for me. While the pandemic may have ended a few years ago, social distancing still continued for me, in some ways. For the most part it was through circumstance rather than by choice, but perhaps it’s time for that to change. It’s time for me to go into Hermit Mode. To put my head down and get to work. To put on the blinders. To tune out the noise. Focus on the quality of my work and mastering my craft, rather than sit around waiting for a warm reception or any sort of reaction. Maybe when I pop my head out next, the reception will be warmer. Maybe it won’t. But I won’t hold my breath either way. I’m just going to keep on keeping on, and worry about that.

Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

Mind Over Matter

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I try not to spend too much time on social media. I don’t do Tik Tok. I’m not going to get a Threads. I stopped using Twitter almost ten years ago. I still use Facebook and Instagram more than I should, but I’m beginning to get tired of it. Call me old if you want to, but I feel like at some point in the past five years the bad started to outweigh the good, and it never let up. But that doesn’t mean that nothing good comes from it. Lessons can be learned, and it still has some benefits.

Sure, social media is a whole lotta bullshit, but there are still nuggets of wisdom hidden amongst the trash. Several weeks ago I came across one such nugget. It’s something I’ve thought about off and on since. I came across an “inspo” post that said, “some people weren’t put here to evolve. They are here to remind you what it looks like if you don’t.” I dunno about you, but that resonates deeply with me. We’ve all come across that one person who never seems to change, hell sometimes we were that person. For the majority of us, something seems to click eventually. Unfortunately, for some others it never does. 

What it comes down to at the end of the day is the type of mindset that you have, although that’s putting it rather simply. “Just be happy,” some might say. I know this statement is triggering for some. It’s still triggering for me, and I feel guilty for saying it. As a teenager struggling with depression and anxiety it was probably one of the last things that I wanted to hear. Along with “it’ll all be okay,” or “think positive,” or “things will get better,” or “it could be worse.” We know now that these are inappropriate things to say to someone who is struggling with their mental health. But it’s not something we knew back then.

God, that makes me sound old… It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I started high school, but 2006 was nearly twenty years ago, and a lot can change in that amount of time. A lot can change in five years. A lot has changed in five years. I remember a time before smartphones and streaming services. A time before high speed internet and social media. I’ll stop before I date myself too much. I just turned thirty-two in early August, but I’ve felt like I was thirty-seven for the last three years. Maybe that’s what happens when you mature and evolve, and transcend to a higher mental plane. I’ve never really felt like I was wise beyond my years, but who knows? Maybe I am. That’s not for me to determine though—other people can decide that. Outside perception of me doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme. People will think what they wanna think. 

The only things I focus on are my growth and my development. Am I trying to become a better person? Am I trying to perfect my craft? Am I trying to strengthen existing relationships? Am I even trying in the first place? Everything else falls to the wayside for me. If I’m not constantly working to be better, then everything kinda loses meaning. I’ve said time and time again that onwards and upwards is the only direction for me. I have to keep learning and keep improving in order to get the most from life. In the past I had a tendency to get comfortable which led to complacency which then led to frustration. I learned the hard way that if I’m not constantly moving then it’s easy for me to fall into a rut. And that’s the last thing I want—feeling helpless and stuck.

Complacency is a thing that hinders our growth. It’s something that stops us from doing everything we can to pursue our dreams. It gives us an excuse to settle. It pauses the progression on our journey. And while it’s possible to hit unpause and start back up, it’s a lot harder to do things that way—stopping and starting. It’s much more efficient if you either maintain your momentum or keep building on it. In the past, I’ve likened my writing journey to the gears on a car. It’s an easy analogy to make. If I’m writing every day like I’m supposed to be doing then it’s easier for me to get up to third or fourth gear. When I stop, it feels like I’m starting over. The same thing applies to your evolution as a human being. 

It’s easier to make changes in your life if you’re constantly working. You can’t form a habit without determination. And once you form a habit it becomes ingrained in you—as long as you put in the effort, you know you will continue to progress. Even when the going gets tough you keep pressing on, because you have to. If you don’t push yourself, who will? Your parents won’t always be there to hold your hand. You can’t always take the easy way out. Those are just the facts of life. You will face adversity at some point. The only way you learn is if you address it head on. If you try to run or hide, it will catch up to you eventually. You might not see the repercussions immediately, but every decision, action or inaction has its consequences.

This was another thing that I learned the hard way, and unfortunately I think that’s kinda how it goes. Almost everyone has a point in their life when they think they know everything. It can be due to many different things such as stubbornness, self-righteousness or ignorance about how the world works. For some it’s just a phase, for others it’s part of who they are. For me, a lot of my decision making was centered around my need to find out for myself. I had to see/do things in order to believe it. You could warn me however many times not to touch the hot iron or stove. But I still wanted to touch it to find out how much it would hurt. 

Sue me, I was a curious kid. But I was also stubborn. More stubborn than I had any right to be. I’ve always been a creature of habit, and as I’ve grown older that much still hasn’t changed. As with anything else it has its positives and its negatives. Being a creature of habit means that I’m low-maintenance and easy going (for the most part). I’m perfectly fine with the routine, doing the same ole shit. But it also means that I have a tendency to be stuck in my ways which could and did lead me to close-mindedness and wariness in trying new things. Even if my methods weren’t working, I still kept trying them over and over and over again. Which, they say is the definition of insanity—trying the same thing but expecting different results. The solution for this seems rather simple: try doing things a different way, and keep an open mind. But it’s easy to revert to type.

As I’ve said before, life is just a series of trial and error. No one truly knows how things will play out. Good advice for one person might not work out for someone else. Your hard work may go overlooked in the moment, but you may be rewarded later. Or you might have great success early on but struggle to maintain it. Life is random and nuanced. You may think you know how things will go, but it can be unpredictable at times. You can’t account for how others will react or the luck of the draw. There are some things that aren’t within your control and they never will be. 

An aphorism that a lot of athletes like to say is, “you can only control what you can control.” Meaning that their best effort is the only thing that matters. The only thing they care about is improving as players. But it pertains to all things. I don’t know when or if I will ever accomplish my dream of becoming a traditionally published author—that’s not up to me. I just need to put in the time and let the chips fall where they may. I can’t force consumers to read or like my work. I can’t force an agent or a publisher to sign me to a contract. I can’t force critics to write positive reviews. All of this is unknown to me, and for a long time the unknown was what I feared, which proved to be the thing that held me back the most. I didn’t put in the effort because I was scared of what might happen if things didn’t work out. But how would I know if I never even tried? I had grown too comfortable and too complacent with my bland life. 

It was easier for me to keep doing things the same way, because even if the results were mediocre, at least I knew what to expect. That was fine for a time, but it grew old after a while. My life had become cyclical, rotating between dark times and okay times, never touching upon great times. I thought my life was destined to keep repeating, never finding happiness no matter how hard I tried. Like I said last time, I started to wonder if there was more to life, and I began to question what I was meant to do. It took some time to figure that out and it required outside help to do so. In order for me to see the light I had to get to my lowest point. Obviously, those were drastic measures, but I hadn’t yet developed the tools I needed to come to these conclusions myself.

That was partly circumstance, but I can’t blame all of it on that. Some of my issues were my fault, resulting from the decisions I had made in my life. Whether or not I was aware that my past behavior was damaging for my future doesn’t matter, I still have to own it. In the end, everything was still done of my own free will. If I had been less stubborn and more willing to heed outside advice I believe things would’ve played out differently. I probably could’ve developed faster, but it’s pointless to speculate too much, because the past is the past. What matters though is that I evolved, not when I evolved or how fast I evolved. When my mindset shifted was when things started to really click for me. Until my mind was opened during therapy it had always seemed like the more things changed the more they stayed the same. I had been prioritizing the wrong things, focusing on the end result without looking at or solidifying the process.

You can’t skip steps in life—not if you want sustained success. It just doesn’t work that way. If you don’t do your part then you’re just relying on luck and randomness, which by definition aren’t reliable. You can’t just let life play out around you, you’ll never get to where you want to go. You need to take life by the horns and control the controllables. Focus on your effort. Focus on your drive to be better at your craft. Focus on being a better human being. The only things you can change in life are found within you.

In order to evolve you need to adapt to the world around you. Be more open to new ideas. Be more willing to ask for help. Be more focused on your development and your growth. Be more grateful and less entitled. Give to others and help those around you, don’t just take take take. If you try to be better you will be better in time. But you have to put in the time and the effort. You have to prioritize the right things. You have to focus on getting incrementally better day by day. Big leaps are great, but momentum is better. Be patient and perfect your process. One day it’ll all be yours but only if you continue to evolve. Be ever changing—not never changing—so that you don’t get stagnant. Evolution is what separates the greats.