I think people forget that it's totally okay to not be okay. Seriously.
To feel a little down, a little frustrated, angry, sad…it's normal. It's part of life. We are to experience these emotions so that when we're NOT experiencing them, we feel fantastic. Now, we don't want to feel these negative emotions all the time, but we need to have them, they are the other half of the scale. If you're in a constant state of happiness, fuck yourself. Not really, but kind of. Either you're full of shit or your psychotic half-human with hundreds of dismembered bodies in your basement.
There's probably a healthy skew to these emotions. Maybe like 80% positive and 20% negative? Does that seem right? or should it be closer to a 90/10? It sounds like we're finding the best cut of meat. This is kind of like that, though. The fat percentage on the meat adds to the deliciousness of the actual muscle fibers. So with a healthy dose of negativity, we can really get the most out of our meat…and positivity.
If people eat straight 100% meat with no fat on it, again…you're one step away from eating nothing but egg white omelets and screaming to the heavens of how much you love kale. Gross. We need the fat…we need the negative for the positive. Your body would fail without fat. Stress creates diamonds from pieces of coal. Sometimes a little frustration with a situation helps you push through it. There's a sense of Deja vu here, like this was written about recently, but fuck it…it's quite prevalent.
Personally, there are really times I just need to do my thing. At the end of the day, we're all going to die alone. Let it sink in - your path out of this thing we call "life" will be by yourself and yourself alone. We can have our companions, our lovers, our friends, our family to support us, but each day we wake up in these bodies… these minds, and we operate autonomously. There can only be one person behind the steering wheel of the mind and it's you. The same with your body - it's you. Sure, we can get a helping hand from people, but you make all of your own choices.
"I didn't have a choice."
You always have a choice, but sometimes the consequences are not those that you like. At times it feels like we don't have one though, that's understandable. Going to the same job every day that you can't stand? But you "have to go to work." You don't have to. You can switch jobs, call in sick, or just fucking not go. No one puts you behind that steering wheel but yourself. You have overhead to pay, bills coming in, a nagging wife, a child to feed…it all makes sense - you're being relied upon. Still, it doesn't mean that you have to go to work. The consequences of "sucking it up" far, far outweigh the consequences of leaving a job of misery because then the baby doesn't eat, the water gets turned off, and your wife leaves you, and then you become a crack addict. I've definitely written something like this before...
OR... or maybe you start a business with your new found freedom. Everyone always compliemented your granola cookies, so now that's all you do - you cook a metric fuckton of cookies and sell them all over the town, then the state, then the country, then the world. Now, because you finally left the job of misery, you were able to do something you're actually passionate about, which better served the world to begin with. Who the hell wants to be a trauma doctor in the ER anyways?
Taking a leap can be scary, there are many that have done it. Some fail, some succeed. It happens. It's life. Not everyone can win, it wouldn't make sense. If everyone won, we'd have an excess of granola cookies. Or "influencers." Or life coaches. Oh shit…
So not everyone eats the granola cookies. They flop. Your granola cookie business goes upside down. The only ones eating them are the homeless and raccoons. Now you've got to go back to your old boss with your tail between your legs, groveling, asking to work for him again. He accepts because overall you're a good trauma doctor and that's exactly what the hospital needs. The hospital is happy to have you back. Your coworkers, who always raved about how they loved your cookies... they were the same coworkers who never wanted to pay for them at $5 a whack. They just enjoyed them in the breakroom. When they told you that you could sell them for $10 a cookie because they were "so utterly delectable," they didn't mean to them. Just to some other people.
You go home at the end of the day, exhausted, worn down by winning some and losing some. Some nights all you can think about is how many you've lost… because you didn't save any lives that day. Then the next day you get the same results. Same with the next day... and the next. Fuck.
Do you need to still be at the ER? What about the granola cookie business? Oh yeah…you tried that. Hooray that you tried, but now you feel like you suck at two things. Man oh man, that shit can wear on you. Your granola cookies that everyone raved about for years weren't worth dick on the open market and now you can't save a life when it's on the table. Now all you want to do is eat the cookies, but you know that won't help.
What about the scotch? Seems rational. You're in pain so cause yourself some more pain…or numb it for the time being. What's better… the sugar rush of a tray of granola cookies or a couple glasses of scotch? Or abstaining from both and just existing with the pain with the only solution being to "suck it up?"
Well, if you "suck it up" you can do it for the greater good. You can do it for the child you have at home, for the loving wife that will be there through thick and thin, and for all the companies that you're already indebted to. You owe them thousands upon thousands of dollars. So if you want to keep all you're pretty things, you're going to have to keep getting that paycheck. They don't want your dumbass granola cookies. "Fuck you, pay me." Ok, no cookies for YOU, Mr. Verizon.
It's okay that you're not feeling okay, it will pass. The best thing you can do for yourself is to stop analyzing your situation and just get back to work. Get lost in it. Enjoy a glass of scotch or a sleeve of cookies for now and understand that you're back to saving lives in the morning. Or not saving them. You can't control the results, only your efforts.