Setbacks

I’ve faced setbacks multiple times in my life. Moments that felt absolutely hopeless even. Things that looked like there was no way out. No direct plan. No divine intervention coming to save me. Just me, a dark room, 3am, a pack of cigarettes, and my thoughts to haunt me and me alone.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever been there. It’s not loneliness, its a feeling deeper than that. A gut-wrenching feeling when you truly know that you are alone in your life. Sure, there are people that love you but when it completely comes down to is that only you occupy your mind, with your thoughts.

“And God said “Love Your Enemy,” and I obeyed him and loved myself.”

― Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings

I know the world has a wonderful way of deluding you and coddling you “it will all be okay. Here take these pills, the issue is some chemicals in your brain going haywire.”

Or… the more ruthless “you need help” that you hear when you share those dark secrets to somebody else (no? just me?). Maybe not many can relate, some might call it your shadow, clearly I’M aware of them, but you might not. Perhaps the feelings, the negative things that you look away from. The monsters under your bed that make you hide under the blankets.

I’ve had some harsh and humbling lows in my life. Some, I didn’t think I’d get past.

Truly…

But, when my self-loathing reached its absolute bottom, I got tired of the self-loathing as well. At that point, I stop caring completely. I realize I’ll figure it out, or won’t or die trying.

This is by no means the part of the newsletter where I shame you for how good you have it. “How could you possibly feel that way when you have 1st world privilege — don’t you get how small your problems are compared to global warming or (insert whatever war is the latest news right now).

To that I say, put your oxygen mask on first. Everything is temporary. All things must pass. The only way to get rid of the monster is to look it in the eye, and go THROUGH the problem.

This is your chapter. This chapter does not define your entire story (or your entire life unless you let it).

And, you’ll be stuck in this chapter until you decide to get to the next one.

It’s all temporary. It’s all going to end before you know it.

Because… aside from death and taxes, you can be sure of one more thing: CHANGE.

Whether you like it or not, it happens…

Nothing stays the same forever.

This is getting personal, but I’m on my absolute edge these past couple days. The border of epiphanies and madness. It’s an uncomfortable place. To be called to change, but the thing is it will happen anyway…

I can go on a pink floating flamingo down the lazy river, or kicking and screaming down the 10,000 ft waterslide but I’m going down anyways.

Embrace your chapter. The more you “rush for it to end”. The more you try to minimize your suffering, the more you are prolonging it. See through the eye of the monster, and walk through the flames only to find out that it’s an illusion created by your mind all along.

You got this.

-S