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.