Check yourself before your wreck yoursel ...

Check yourself before your wreck yourself (and others)

Nov 22, 2022

To make an omelet, you've got to break some eggs. To write this post, I've got to be concise: You are not perfect. You're nowhere near perfect. If you're still alive, you're a work in progress and you better be working on that work in progress. If you're dismissive of working on yourself, then you're a sociopath. If you ignore this fact, then you're ignorant to your own needs. Your mind, your soul, your body all try to scream to you in a language only you can understand and beg for what they need.

Your mind needs silence so that it can work through everything it's already thinking.
Your soul needs nourishment, something that brings a sense of purpose and meaning to your existence each day. It's a constant answering of the question "Why?"
Your body needs to move, stretch, and relax without the interference or causing interference to the former two.

If we don't listen, if we ignore, if we go against the grain…then you're going to search for their needs in the wrong way... in a way that won't suffice. You zig when you should zag, you rest when you need to move, you try to quiet your mind when you really just needed to listen. You'll seek out solace in the wrong places and sometimes this can be at sacrifice to the feelings of the ones you care for. You did something that could potentially hurt someone else. Instead of having the conversation and admitting wrongdoing, you push it down. You hide it. Here's a reminder: if the universe wants someone to know something, it'll make everything abundantly clear. The dishonesty will only make things worse. It's one thing to drop a bowling ball on your foot, but it's another to have it dropped it on your foot from 20 stories up and engulfed in flames. It was going to suck either way, but why the fuck would you hang a bowling ball out your window if you're not from a Looney Toons skit?

It was said to me a long time ago that a sure fire sign of maturity is the ability to have the conversations that you don't want to have. When you think deeper about this, it makes you wonder why you're ever scared to have a conversation in the first place. Your imagination is far worse than what will ever take place when you talk. Your fears will run rampant in that sandbox you call your "mind." The fears can do whatever they want. It's like a full on angry child with a VR headset that wants to see the world burn. The more you see, the more you can't unsee. But if you take the headset off, have the conversation, it'll quickly become clear that it was never as close to as bad as you thought.

If you love someone, do you respect them? Well, if you respect someone, do you think they're worth telling the truth to, regardless of how you THINK they may take it? When you hide something from someone, you're only giving it more power and more meaning that maybe it didn't even have to begin with. It's like what Mom said; she's not mad that you took the cookies, she's mad that you lied about it. Worse off, she's not even mad but she's "disappointed."

OOF.

Think of the Edgar Allen Poe tale, The Raven. The heart below the floorboards kept murmuring until it's all the character could hear. It drove them insane heartbeat after heartbeat. Guilt is real. Guilt will find its' way to the surface. It will grow as time goes on which will only take away from your ability to be truly happy, to be truly present, to be plain ol' true. How can you be honest if the skeletons in your closet won't stop slamming on the door DYING to get out (pun not initially intended)?

If you have something to tell someone, tell them. When you hide it, regardless of how long it's in hiding, you take away your ability to be genuine with that person. You take away their ability to know who you actually are. You take away their ability to even have a chance to be who they actually are. When you hide something from someone, you're stealing from their life as well. And if you love them, how can you really love their being when you don't KNOW their being? How can someone practice their patience and being unemotional if you let your lies dictate their reality? That's not fair and that's not true love. That's not even real friendship. Actions speak louder than words and you're not letting them speak.

It's become common in modern US society to always want more. You'll feel empty because you need more from your friends. You'll feel bored because you need something to entertain you. You'll feel hungry because you want to eat those delicious chips. What the hell happened to looking at ourselves, first? Do you truly feel empty? Is that what your soul is telling you? Do you really need more from others or do you need more from yourself? Maybe you need to take those few minutes in the morning or night and feed your soul so that you can feel fulfilled each day? Man, Chicken Soup for the Soul makes so much more sense as a book title as I write this…

Are you really bored because you want to play Call of Duty or the TV is off and you want it on? Have you tried meditating? Have you tried setting your baseline to absolute nothingness before you add anything? Maybe your baseline is what's fucked. Try becoming accustomed and seeking absolute nothingness before aching for "moreness."

You're not hungry. Try fasting for a day or 3. You'll realize that the hunger shuts off. You're not really hungry as you just enjoy the act of eating. That's fine, but humans were meant to go days without food. Water is a different story, but you don't need more food… you need less.

Lots of us are seeking to constantly add more because we don't feel fulfilled. In actuality, we need less. We need to be grateful for what we have and we need to be fucking aware of it. Within nothing, is everything. Seek less, not more. That means less people in your life but with more meaning. That means less activities, but they should have more importance to you. It also means less food, because you don't need as much as you think to be healthy and happy. Except on Thanksgiving…eat until your stomach explodes. THEN go on and have less.

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