Tag Archives: Mental Health

Mental Health, Sports

Fly Eagles Fly

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It’s finally over (and good riddance too). My NFL season is done. I don’t really talk about sports much on this page for whatever reason. I guess maybe it doesn’t seem that relevant to mental health (although it is mentally and emotionally draining for me a lot of the time). But I think I have to talk about it. If I don’t talk about it here, I feel like the results of this season will weigh heavily on my heart and mind. Best if I just get it off my chest then.

I admit, I don’t look like your typical sports fan. I’m a 5’9” Asian-American male who weighs one hundred and twenty-five pounds soaking wet. I’m thirty-two years old, but probably look closer to twenty-two. And based on appearance alone you’d probably think I’m somewhere between a hipster and a nerd. You wouldn’t be wrong in that assessment. I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum. Choosing not to conform, and not being afraid to stand out. I’ve always thought of myself as different, but the truth is I think I’ve just always had a hard time fitting in. I never really knew the full reason(s), and I still don’t. But I suspect my varied interests plays a role in it.

While I’m not generally one to start a conversation, I can talk at length about football or UFC, but I can also talk at length about Marvel or Star Wars, or metal and rock music, or politics and the environment. If there’s one thing you should know about me it’s that I can get quite obsessive about my interests. I need to know everything there is to know about a certain band or author or what have you. It’s always been in my nature to try to find out the answers to all of my questions. Not a bad trait to have, but it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. This incessant search for knowledge and information can at times prevent me from living in the moment. And it can end up using far too much of my time. And chances are once you get me talking about these things you can’t get me to stop talking about these things. What can I say? I’m passionate about the things I love.

But it often comes at a cost. Especially when it comes to sporting events. If there’s a UFC event on you can bet that I’ll be watching the whole thing, from the first prelim to the main event. Doesn’t matter if the fighters are people that I’ve never heard of, or athletes that I don’t like, I still have to watch every fight. Part of that is because I’ve always been a completionist at heart. If you give me an RPG I’m looking for and collecting every item, junk or treasure. And you’ll find me doing all the side quests before I even get started on the main one. Which again comes at a cost—more often than not I get tired of a game before I get a chance to finish it. The same goes with listening to music or pleasure reading. I listen to artists by discography in chronological order. Likewise, for authors with an extensive list of works (take Stephen King for example) I will read from oldest to newest. And during COVID I found a Marvel comics reading order online that includes over 15,000 issues, starting from it’s inception to present day (I’m currently in 2008, not that anyone asked), so I’ve been chipping away at it since then.

If this sounds tedious, it’s because it is! But it’s a part of me that I feel like can’t really be helped. I’ve tried to suppress certain interests of mine before in the past, but it’s never really worked out. As much as I pretended not to nerd out in public, I still ended up doing it on my own time. I am a complex individual that’s composed of many parts, not all of them are equal in size, but all play a role in shaping who I am. When it comes down to it, I’m a creature of habit, so once I get stuck in a routine it’s hard for me to break away from it. Even after all this time, I’m still trying to find a delicate balance. How can I do the things I love to do while still being flexible? How do I manage my time if all of my interests demand my attention? Unfortunately, it means that some of these things get neglected for a while. But eventually I always go back to them. Except one thing that I can’t return to, because I’ve never left it behind.

Football. Football consumes me. I follow it year round, not just in the fall when the season is played. Every day consists of reading articles from various news outlets. Once the Super Bowl ends, I look on at Free Agency and the draft. Once the draft ends I’m thinking about training camp. I live and breathe football, even though I didn’t get a chance to play it when I was younger. In fact, I didn’t even participate in sports when I was a kid, which I’m still bitter about, but that’s a story for a different time. Not being able to play did not, however, prevent me from watching a shit ton of sports. Which is something that my immigrant parents never really understood. 

I can’t really blame them. Growing up in China and Cambodia never afforded them the luxury of playing or watching sports. But I digress. My interest in watching sports began in fifth grade, mostly by accident. Our family never had cable consistently, so my TV options were rather limited. After school I would watch TNA Wrestling, and on the weekends I would watch whatever game was on, be it football, baseball, or hockey. It started out at first as just something to do, but I eventually developed an interest in football in particular. I would read about it and check stats in the newspaper, I started buying Madden and NCAA Football video games, and I would listen intently as I watched the broadcasts. Eventually it became part of my routine—turning on a football game once we got home from church. 

That much hasn’t changed in the twenty-two years since. If anything it’s gotten worse. Rather than just watching a game or two on Sundays, it’s gotten to the point where I watch five games at a minimum each week, regardless of if the matchups are good or not. If you wanted to hang out with me on a Sunday, Monday, or a Thursday during the football season you can forget about it! My time slots are booked up. I’ve tried to become more flexible, to be less stubborn, to be less obsessed. But whatever I’ve tried has not worked. That being said though, I know every rule there is to know about the game. I can tell you who plays what position and for what team. I can explain strategy or schemes to you. I don’t look like I know football, but I do. 

But this season was disappointing and tough to watch. Which unfortunately, is something I’m quite used to. Sports fandom itself is a hard thing to understand from the outside looking in. How does this affect us directly? Why do we care so much about the teams that we support? Isn’t it just a game? Yes, but no. Somehow we find camaraderie in a shared interest. These fellow fans become our brethren—brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. If you really think about it though, how is this different from any other fandom? Do people who read the same books not gravitate towards each other? Do friends who watch the same shows not talk about them together? The only difference is that it’s on a much larger scale and on a grander stage. Sports fandom reaches into the millions, bringing people together from all walks of life. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor. From the city or the suburbs. Local or out of towner. Male or female. It doesn’t discriminate by race or political views. It brings us together. 

And for a while, it allows us to forget about the worries we have in our regular lives. We might have high highs or low lows, but we’re in it together, as one. To a sports fan, we’re as much a part of the team as the players and the coaches. We rejoice with them when we win, and we commiserate with them when we lose. For the last few years, there have been many more wins than losses. But it wasn’t always like that for me growing up. Many seasons ended for us in heartbreak fashion but I can’t remember a season anywhere near as disappointing as this one.

I still remember the day I became a hardcore Philadelphia Eagles fan. Having moved to New England from Philadelphia when I was in second grade, the first few years that I watched sports I mostly rooted for Boston teams, although I did support both the Patriots and the Eagles. But all that changed in 2004 when my two hometown teams faced each other in the Super Bowl. I remember coming to a crossroads, not knowing which team to pick. But as I stated before, I’ve always been different and a bit of a contrarian. So I went against the grain, and sided with the Eagles. Since then we’ve played in three Super Bowls, winning one and losing two. While the Patriots have appeared in nine, and won six. However, I do not regret that decision and I never will.

Since that time, there’s been many a rough season that culminated with a coach getting fired. Or a season that started out with high hopes and promise but fizzled out. Or ones that have ended with disappointment and heartbreak. But each one of those years we learned to temper our expectations, because we had a feeling it would be the same ole Eagles letting us down once again. It had always been a team that fell flat in the biggest moments. One that never could get over the hump. But even through it all, they were still our team. We were still behind them through thick and thin. All that changed in 2017, when we finally won the big game. This was, “the new normal” for us. We expected deep playoff runs and more rings. Our expectations were high, and they remained that way.

Little did we know that it would soon fall apart. It wasn’t meant to be. Just a one off, rather than a dynasty. But even after the winners of that Super Bowl got sent off to different cities, hope was restored. We came so close to winning it again last year. Just a few plays away. So close. So we started out 2023, expecting to make it back. Expecting to be just as good a team as last year. And it started out that way! We were the best team in the league, on top of the world from September to November. But December came and we crashed and burned. Never in my years of watching the Eagles have I seen such an epic collapse. Never has there been so drastic a fall from grace in such a short period of time. One of the best teams in the league for the first three months, but one of the worst in the last seven weeks. So that’s it, we’re done. The season is over. Onto the next one. We’ll try again and start over. But however upsetting it was, however disappointing, the Eagles are still my team forever and always. I’ll always rep the green and white. I’m still sad that this is how it ended, but I’ll still be here cheering them on. Fly Eagles Fly.

Changing, Discovery, Growth, Healing, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

Great Expectations

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I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I never really have (aside from a handful of times). Truth be told “resolution” is a word that I’m not too fond of to begin with. It’s too definite and suffocating. It’s a results-driven word that sets up a pass/fail scenario. Did I see my resolutions through to the end? If yes, then I succeeded. If no, then I didn’t. For some, it’s not a huge deal. They might say, “oh well, I’ll try again next year.” Or use some other justification. But for someone who overthinks as much as I do, and used to struggle with self-confidence the way I did it could instead be quite damning. The prospect of failure was too much for me to bear.

Before I started seeing a therapist, I had a tendency to spiral. I’d replay scenarios in my head, wallow in self-pity, and I took failure personally. Every time something didn’t go as planned or ended in a negative result my confidence meter took a hit. As I’ve said before, I was not well-equipped to handle adversity, had no self-awareness, didn’t have an ounce of mental fortitude. When times got tough I withered. When the pressure was on I came up small. When misfortune hit everything cratered. So for me, a failed resolution became another reason for why I didn’t deserve to live. I took it as proof that I was worthless, and would always amount to nothing. 

So why bother making them if I was certain they would fail? Why risk it when disappointment was likely inevitable? Not a healthy train of thought in the slightest, but I was not a healthy person. As you know, in the past few years I’ve found my healing. I’ve changed and I’ve grown. I’m not the same scared kid that I used to be. I’m not the same person that used to break easily. I’m not the same guy that looked for excuses not to try. But as much as I’ve changed, a few things still remain. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, and I probably never will. Perhaps deep down I’m still worried about the pain that failure might cause? Perhaps not. 

Either way, the tradition is results-driven, and as you’ve probably noticed by now I am much more process-driven. I hold myself to a certain standard and I’ll settle for nothing less. I’ve lucked into positive results in the past, but was never able to sustain the success, because I hadn’t set myself up for the future. In order to get repeated good results, you need to firm up your process. It’s hard to do that if you’re not meeting the standard. If I’m being honest, that type of outcome—success without meeting the standard—is futile to me. If the changes I make aren’t permanent, then it’s wasted effort. Everything I do henceforth would be done in hopes that I would hit the mark without knowing how I actually did it the first time. Which is only wasting time. Think of it like an experiment. You write out the steps you need to take in order to get the results that you want. If there’s a mistake in your process, you tinker then try again. And again and again and again. That’s how you learn and grow and improve. By finding out what works and what doesn’t work, and changing your process accordingly.

This is exactly what I lacked when I was in high school—the ability to adapt. I didn’t have a process whatsoever, let alone a sound one. But I still expected success to come of it. I still expected things to work out in my favor, meanwhile ignoring the fact that I had done nothing to ensure such results. You can’t get good grades unless you study the material. You can’t get a girlfriend unless you develop some sort of connection first. You can’t find success unless you put in the work. Sounds obvious, but it wasn’t to me. For whatever reason, I had thought I was a special case. I thought I could get positive results without putting in much effort. In truth, I think at times I was just too smart for my own good. Elementary school came easy to me, so I continued to expect more of the same. I should’ve known that eventually it would catch up to me. But I remained blissfully ignorant and unaware until it was too late.

By that point, I was in college, and in way over my head. Throughout Junior High and High School I had put in the minimum level of effort required to come away with mostly B’s, some A’s, and a handful of C’s. Which was acceptable to me, but beneath my level of care. I kept asking myself, “why put in all that effort if I can do less and still come away with adequate results?” I thought I was being smart, but little did I know that this was always going to come back to bite me. I approached my college courses with the same level of inattention, and I suffered the consequences for it—coming away with the first and last D I ever received. Which nearly ruined my college career right when I had just begun. But I put my head down and got serious, because what else could I do? I needed to right the ship immediately.

After some steady effort for the next three and a half years, I was able to bring my GPA back up to something respectable. But what could’ve been? How different would my life have turned out if I’d actually tried? What if I hadn’t talked myself into accepting a life of mediocrity? What if I had worked diligently the whole time, rather than only for the last handful of years? What if I had been as determined then as I am now? Unfortunately, these are not questions that we will ever get the answers to. Who I was then is not who I am now. I wasn’t someone capable of pushing through adversity. I was weak-willed, a quitter—someone who always took the easy way out. Someone who was used to running away or hiding. Someone who was pampered and sheltered. Someone who never took responsibility or held himself accountable. I thought that all mistakes could be covered up, and that I could lie and weasel my way out of the consequences. I lacked the self-awareness necessary to realize that I wasn’t fooling anyone.

And yet, I somehow lucked my way into mild success. Again, nothing sustainable because I didn’t have a sound process, but it was better than what I’d experienced up til then. For the first time in twenty-four years I was content. But the contentedness was fleeting. As I gained more responsibility at my job, the work became less fulfilling. And the little confidence I had gained whittled away again, and I was left with even less than I’d started with. Little did I know, but I wasn’t meant for the corporate world. I had only entered into it because, like always, I had taken the easy way out. When I left high school I didn’t have a plan—I hadn’t spent much time thinking about my future. Which is fine for someone of that age. It’s perfectly acceptable to start college with “undecided” for a major. But the thought had never crossed my mind. Instead, I pursued one of the career paths that I thought would be acceptable to my parents. I didn’t have the grades or the patience for a STEM major, so I studied Business instead.

But that was never my interest or who I was. It wasn’t what I was meant to do. I wasn’t a marketing analyst like I had thought. I wasn’t a salesman like my employer had told me. I wasn’t even a customer service representative even though I was good at it. I’m a writer and a storyteller. A creative and an artist. I was meant to craft sentences and build worlds. I was meant to wordplay. That is what I am and that is who I will be. I’ve learned a lot since I dedicated myself to this blog in 2020. It’s been a long journey with many twists and turns. Up until last year I was learning on the job, getting better incrementally but not getting good enough or progressing fast enough. That much changed when I found a writing community. I started to receive the feedback that I needed to hear in order for me to level up my ability. The year 2023 was a blessing, and I’m looking forward to seeing what 2024 can do for me.

So as the calendar crosses over, what am I hoping to accomplish? What am I expecting from the new year? As I said, I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. But I will set expectations. I expect to continue to improve as a writer and a storyteller each and every day. I expect to be able to write free of hindrance—no longer will I question whether or not I’m good enough. I expect my words to flow easier than they did before. I expect my story to be more coherent. I expect to continue to foster relationships with other aspiring authors. I expect to continue to learn from both the good and bad in life. I expect to become a better person this year than I was last year. But most of all, I expect abundance, growth, and blessings. Something good will come of your life if you only continue to work.

Changing, Discovery, Growth, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness, Writing

The Best Things in Life

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So, it’s been some time since my last blog post. I apologize for that. I was working on something that I wasn’t thrilled about, which I ended up scrapping (I probably took too long to make that decision though). So we ended up with a break in the action. That wasn’t intentional. After that, I ended up hitting a bit of a rough patch, but I’m good now. Up until that though, I was still working hard and writing every day. Those few weeks were still really productive. But my time and focus was used differently. 

I’ve talked before about the ebbs and flows of the writing process. And it becomes steadily clearer to me each week. As I’ve mentioned before, I spend my time on four different types of writing: critiques, blogging, fiction, and poetry. In my head, each thing is weighted differently in terms of priority, but it doesn’t always work out the way I intend. The amount of time and focus I spend on each thing differs day by day and week by week. The interesting thing about it though is that you can be doing really well with one aspect of writing, while struggling with another. Or it could all be going well or all be going poorly. For a while it seemed like my fiction writing and my blogging kept switching places. It was almost like I could write a good chapter or write a blog post that I was happy with, but I couldn’t do both concurrently. 

It’s possible that I’m just spreading myself too thin, but I’d like to believe that it’s not the case. There are many other writers out there that work on multiple projects at once, some published authors, some not. If people that are much busier than I am can do it, then why can’t I? Truth be told, I’m still relatively new to this, so I think I just haven’t found what works best for me yet. I’m still tinkering around and trying to streamline my process. Unfortunately, as I’ve said before, things haven’t worked out quite the way that I anticipated. You can chalk most of that up to inexperience and setting incorrect expectations. But another part of it was also all that time that I had spent writing in isolation, which unbeknownst to me really hindered my growth.

When I first started writing in earnest in 2020, it started out as just trial and error. Testing out the waters to see if I could do it. I had naively assumed that God-given talent would be enough. If I could form a well-written sentence then I could write a blog post. If I could write a blog post then I could write a chapter. If I could write a chapter then I could write a novel. Technically, all that is true, but it’s not that simple. It takes more than that, which I learned the hard way in 2022. If you really think about it though, why should that come as a surprise? If we believe that the best things in life require maximum effort and dedication, then naturally if we want to excel at anything then we need to learn as much as we can about that topic. That requires you to work on your weaknesses not just your strengths. To also focus on the areas that don’t interest you at all or interest you less. To spend time on the tedious as well as the entertaining. But most importantly, you need to step out of your comfort zone. You need to ask yourself tough questions. You need to try new things. To change up your approach if necessary. 

For two and a half years, I did none of that. I cruised along thinking that I was ready for this, when in fact I was nowhere near. But pressure and expectations were low, which gave me the freedom to focus on writing consistently. Which at the very least was a good first step. For half a decade or more before that I blogged on and off, binge writing at times, but going through long periods of inactivity in between. At least now I was writing regularly in my free time either after work or on the weekends, which was good. But I was trying to crank through as many posts and chapters as I could. I valued speed over quality, which is somewhat ironic considering the length of time spent on some of those posts. I hadn’t yet learned what it meant to, “kill your darlings.” Thus I edited lightly without a keen enough eye. I grew attached to sentences and paragraphs, which led me on tangents that caused my writing style to read like stream of consciousness at times. Resulting in posts that were far too long and likely quite boring to read. 

I’ve always had a knack for wordplay and sentence structure, so I’d like to think that I started out with a higher base level of talent. Whether or not that’s actually true isn’t all that important though. Just because I had that in my back pocket didn’t mean that I was a good writer, let alone a great one. All it meant was that I could craft a sentence—nothing more, nothing less. In the first three years I was learning how to write, and writing more consistently, but I wasn’t improving enough as a writer or as a storyteller. I was nowhere near the level I needed to be at, and I wasn’t progressing towards that, which I completely failed to realize. That’s because I hadn’t yet stepped out of my comfort zone or started taking enough risks, as much as I wanted to believe otherwise.

Instead, I was already falling into bad habits, walking into traps, and blundering into rookie mistakes. But what did I know? I had never written creatively before aside from an ungraded course I had taken my freshman year of college. The purpose of that class wasn’t even to learn how to write, it was geared towards bonding with other freshmen! And outside of a required writing class I had taken that same year I had never critiqued peer work. That being said, the only writing experience I really had were papers and projects I had written for various classes, and the only feedback I’d gotten were the grades and comments from teachers and professors. Not much of anything to say the least. But that didn’t stop me from developing an inflated ego. Not my finest moment.

What I needed was a kick in the pants. Something to knock me off my high horse. I wasn’t some fancy big-shot writer. I was an amateur, same as everyone else. I thought I could make it work, but I hadn’t started from the ground up, so didn’t have a firm foundation. I didn’t have the right mindset. I knew better though, didn’t I? I should’ve taken the same lessons I had learned in therapy and applied them to this new hobby. My therapist had taught me to be even-keeled, not to be too high or too low, to reset to zero when needed. She had helped me become confident in myself while remaining humble. She had shown me how to act like I knew nothing, and that there was everything left to learn. That’s where I should’ve started—with no preconceptions, without conceit. I needed to learn how to write well before I could claim to be a writer.

No wonder then that things didn’t work out as planned. No wonder then that I found myself burnt out eight months after I quit my day job. I didn’t have what it took to live the life I wanted to live. And thus, I found myself in therapy once again. And as tough as it was to uncover things about my past yet again, it did me a whole lot of good. Without it I never would’ve found a writing community, and my writing never would’ve improved. As I’ve said before, the first four to five months of posting chapters for critique were difficult. But again, what did I expect? I had never done it before, so therefore didn’t have an accurate gauge on my writing ability. I needed to be put in my place. I needed someone to tell me the honest truth: you’re not the writer that you think you are—not yet. I needed to be shown the areas that needed improvement. 

Some writers were nice about it, and gave me constructive criticism. Others were more unpleasant. Of course, the former is so much more delightful to deal with, and leaves you feeling good about yourself. You need those types of people to help you maintain your confidence. But the latter was just as necessary for me. Without hearing the harsh reality I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to get to where I needed to get to. I needed to be broken down and reminded to keep my ego in check. I needed to know how I matched up with other writers. I needed to understand that I wasn’t anywhere close to where I thought I was, but I could get there in time if I put in the effort. I had to rediscover my humility. Without it I was nothing and no one—just a pretender.

Just someone who thought he knew how to write, but didn’t really. They say, “it takes a million words before you’re able to write something of good quality.” Early on, I would’ve scoffed at that notion, but I don’t think they’re wrong. I’ve been writing almost every day since 2020, but I consider 2023 my year one. This was the year I came into my own. The year I discovered my writing style. The year I finally knew what my story was about. The year I finally understood who my characters are. The year I found out where I stack up. The year I found a mutually beneficial writing partnership (which will soon grow into a circle of three). I’ve called myself a writer before, and I’ve felt like a writer before, but now I can say with certainty that I am a writer. I can finally put my money where my mouth is, because only now am I able to write well. I’ve learned how to write, so I just need to keep on keeping on. The only way I fail is if I stop.

Art, Brokenness, Depression, Mental Health, Poetry

Not Today

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It seems to always come and go
Rearing its head up when I least expect it
I thought I was over this!
I thought this was fixed
I thought this was a part of my past
Never to return

But I was sorely mistaken
It comes and goes as it pleases
It’s part of my life
A daily struggle
Will I give in? Or will I soldier on?
Will I allow it to dictate how I feel?
Will I allow it to be my master?

I’ve conquered it before
And I’ll conquer it again
But some days feels so bleak
Some weeks are so unbearably dark
A cloud looms overhead
Bitterness fills my heart

I try to be stronger
I try to be better
But sometimes its just so hard
Some days I can’t get out of bed
Some days I can’t help but despair
But as soon as it comes, it’s gone again like a whisper
A blip on the radar, just a few days or a week here and there

Am I crazy? Did I imagine it?
What had made me feel so sad?
What had made me lose all hope?
Did it even happen? Was it even real?

Something is broken inside of my soul
There are times when it feels fixed
But I am never whole
It’s part of my life, always has been, always will be
I wish I could be better
I wish I could heal and not look back
But that’s just wishful thinking
Hoping for a miracle that isn’t going to happen
All I can do is do the best that I can do
Work with what I have

It will be my constant companion
Poking its head up to remind me that it’s there
Every day will be a battle
Every day will be about conquering my fear
I won’t let it win
But I have to remind myself time and time again
This isn’t a war I can win for good

Everyday will be a battle
Everyday I will need to fight
I will need to prove myself again and again
I will need to show that I am bigger than my struggle
I am better than this
I can overcome

But each time it returns I’ll need to be strong
Each time it comes I will need to be on my guard
Each time it shows I will say, “not today”
Not today, not today
You will not win
You will not claim me as a victim
Not today

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

The Man in the Mirror

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I just returned from a well-needed and well-deserved vacation. The second one I’ve taken in the last four months. I’m rested, relaxed, and refocused. So that’s it, take two. Here we go. Let’s try this again. No distractions. No lack of focus. No being thrown off my game this time. As I’ve mentioned several times recently, getting back on track hasn’t been easy as of late. We’ve gone over the self-doubt, and perceived lack of support and understanding, and the differing expectations, so we don’t really need to rehash that here. I need to do better and try harder to get on schedule, that’s really what it comes down to. No excuses. And no, “I’ll try.” I just need to do it and that’s it. 

I have to admit that this is still kinda new to me: transitioning to vacation mode and back. When I was still part of the workforce I had been conditioned to believe that I needed a very good reason for missing work. So I barely took off—something I still regret. Several well-timed vacations would’ve given me a chance to physically and mentally reset. I know that now, but you live and you learn. And you can’t change the past. If I had been in a better mental state back then my life would’ve turned out very differently. Would it have been better? Would it have been worse? Would I still have learned the lessons that I needed to learn? Who knows. 

All I know is that I’m moving forward, in the midst of a transformation. I think everyone is to some extent. Everyone came out of the pandemic changed in some way. How could we not? We live in a society where most individuals don’t spend that much time isolated and alone. It has now come and gone, and we’re still trying to figure out what life looks like afterwards. Truth be told, I didn’t really know what life was supposed to look like before that either. For most of my teenage and adult years I was suffering from depression and anxiety. I had trouble finding the meaning in life, and I didn’t know what happiness looked like. All I knew was pain and suffering, and sadness. No surprise then that my outlook on life was already tainted.

As I’ve said before, therapy saved me and brought me healing. It helped me to change my mindset. Helped me to be more grateful. More productive. More satisfied with where I was and where I was going. More in tune with myself. It showed me how to love myself and to love others. It showed me the meaning of life. And it showed me my purpose. I could go on about what it’s done for me, but we would be here all day, so I’ll end with this: the most important thing that therapy taught me was how to think critically and reflect. Neither of which was something I really did much of before. Yes, I did a lot of thinking when I was younger, but I spent a lot of that time moping and/or feeling sorry for myself, which obviously isn’t helpful or productive.

That’s not what reflection is. Reflection isn’t just thinking for the sake of it. It isn’t just stewing over things in your head or circulating thoughts. Reflection calls for action. It requires dictating the next steps, finding a path forwards. It means thinking about ways to avoid making the same mistakes. It means learning from your past to better guide your future. You know what the fun thing about reflection is though? You can always learn new things from revisiting past events. Growth isn’t always linear. Past trauma can teach you different things in different phases of your life. 

Although that became clear to me during my first cycle of therapy, it’s something that I’m reminded of continually. Naturally, I’m someone who doesn’t really let things go. Try as I may I don’t really forget past events, misplace information, or overlook minor details. It’s a bit of a blessing and a curse. I’m good with names and faces. I could probably put together a family tree based off of anecdotes. I can recall details you may have told me once in passing five years ago. But I also find it hard to forgive and forget. I find it hard to move past disagreements. I find it hard not to hold grudges. No surprise then that when I was younger I used to react in destructive ways. I was prone to lashing out or acting petty. If I didn’t do either I would bottle up my emotion until it reached harmful levels. I either became a detriment to others or a detriment to myself.

Over time and through therapy I’ve learned to explore things in more productive ways—turn my negative energy into positive energy. And that starts with reflection. If I’m going to be spending all that time thinking about the past, then I better make the most of it. Instead of stewing, I should be processing. Instead of internalizing perceived slights against me I should be thinking of how I can be better. Instead of getting caught up in the failure, I should be learning from the mistake. Once I started focusing my attention on the future rather than dwelling on the past I was able to move on with my life. Able to better direct my path moving forwards. 

There’s nothing worse than the feeling you get when you keep making the same mistakes over and over. You might feel like you’re stuck, or that you have no say in the matter. You might feel like the outcome is inevitable, but it’s not! You aren’t destined to be a failure. You aren’t destined to be a loser. You aren’t destined to keep repeating the cycle. You can alter the course of your life, but you have to learn from your mistakes. If things aren’t working out you have to try something new. You have to be willing to ask for help or guidance. You have to try your best to problem solve. And you know what that starts with? Yup, you guessed it: reflection. You take what life has given you and you think things through. You reflect before you react, and then you go from there.

It’s really pretty crazy looking back at what my life looked like before I started reflecting. It was chaotic and uncontrolled. Unpredictable in some ways but obvious in others. Of course pre-reflection Justin was also pre-therapy Justin, so we do have to take that into account. I already wasn’t sound of mind, but add poor decision making to the mix, as well as stubbornness that led to repeating the same mistakes? That’s a recipe for disaster. In essence I was going through life without a game plan. Trying to figure out how to live without any direction. My decision making was almost always rash and in the moment, not thinking about how it would affect my future. Not thinking of the repercussions, of which there were many. I lived moment to moment, thinking that I would deal with things as they came. 

Sounds good in theory, but this just wasn’t something that happened. Expectation wasn’t reality. As I’ve said before, I was more likely to run and hide from adversity than to face it head on. I wanted to deal with things as they came, but I didn’t. Part of it was because I didn’t know how, but a larger part of it was that I didn’t even try. It’s one thing to think something, but being determined to do it is something else entirely. However, neither matters if action doesn’t follow. I say this time and time again, but I’ll say it again. In order to live the life that you envision, you need to do your part. You need to push and grind. You need to put in the effort.

And yes, it all starts with reflection. Things didn’t used to go my way because I didn’t have any semblance of a plan in place. I hadn’t plotted how I would get from point A to point B. I hadn’t figured out how to stop repeating mistakes. I hadn’t drilled down to the root of my issues. I hadn’t actually made any changes to my mindset or lifestyle, even though I kept telling myself that I would. I wanted or expected certain things from life but I didn’t do what needed to be done in order to get those results. I hadn’t learned my lessons. Life is funny that way. It might feel like you’re destined to repeat past mistakes or to suffer from the same issues. But you’re really not. It only feels that way because you haven’t learned from them yet. Once you learn from them, life will throw new challenges at you and you can move on.

Unfortunately, it took me twenty-eight years to finally move on. To finally try something different after years of frustration. To finally admit that what I was doing wasn’t working. To finally realize why my life felt meaningless—because what I was doing wasn’t fulfilling. To finally decide that I wanted to live a life that was worth living. To finally be a productive member of society. And it took another year and a half to come up with a gameplan. None of this would’ve been possible without reflection. And reflection only happened cause of therapy. So when I say that therapy saved my life, I mean that in more ways than one. It helped me to redirect my life trajectory. Helped me to rediscover my purpose and meaning. Helped me to redefine what I meant to the world. 

But this starts with me. And it starts with you. It starts with processing your past to guide your future. It starts with looking in the mirror and deciding who you want to be. It starts with making the steps necessary to better your quality of life. It starts with sitting down and figuring out what’s working and what isn’t. It starts with coming up with reasons to keep on going, thinking of what gets you up in the morning. The life that you’re living might not be the life that you’re meant for. The career path that you’re on might not be the thing that you’re passionate about. But you will never know unless you reflect.