This entry marks the beginning of another new year. As usual, I’ve been busy with life, the Universe, and everything. My career continues to go well and I will (hopefully) secure a spot in this school permanently within the next year or so. My social life is picking back up. I’m starting to become more comfortable around people in general again for the first time in a long while. I’ve grown a lot in the past year and a half that I’ve been rebooting, and I’ve learned a lot about the world, about people, and about myself. There are some of these lessons that I’m happy with and others that I’m not. All are things that I perceive to be true at the moment. As I keep growing and changing, that perception might not hold. That said, this is what I’ve learned-
No one owes me anything. If I do things out of the goodness of my heart, there shouldn’t be a little asterisk that says “I deserve a reward/recognition for this!” The world doesn’t work that way. Most people who do things out of the goodness of their heart in this world are taken advantage of by the very people they’re helping. It is said that the difference between dogs and humans is that humans bite the hands that feed them while dogs do not. That said I'm not saying that I’ll never help people ever again. What I am saying is that I’m going to be smart about who I help. It means help when I can and send positive thoughts the rest of the time. I can’t help people if I’m not emotionally healthy myself. And I’m not helping people who drain me or use me.
Don’t hold bad judgment against people. People make mistakes all the damn time. It’s what makes us people. I’m not perfect; there are a lot of situations I’ve gotten myself into because my judgment was set in stone in spite of all other evidence. I, therefore, have no right to look down on someone who “is making such an obvious mistake by (insert mistake here).” People deal with things differently. Some people are bull-headed like me and attack problems head on. Some people like to pretend problems don’t exist and hide. Some people don’t believe they have problems at all, no matter how obvious they are to everyone else. Let them go. Let them make their mistakes, it’s the only way they’ll learn. Pain, sadly, is humanity’s greatest teacher.
The more someone preaches, the more likely it is that they’re full of shit. Someone who has the answers to all of life’s problems should be fixing them instead of telling us what they are. If someone is telling me how much better their life is because they live a certain way and I don’t, there’s a decent chance that they need me as a sounding board for their ideology and not as a friend (or human being, for that matter). I don’t mean this religiously; faith in one or multiple supreme beings is one thing. Belief in a life that you try to force on others despite their protests and/or sensitivities is another. To some people, there is no difference between the two, and I can’t say I blame them for feeling that way. People tend to hide behind what they “believe” as a way to attack others, which is a shame. Hence, the preaching- live and let live. No one has to live the way I or anyone else lives. There is no set rulebook for life. If there was, we’d all have the same one when we were born. End of story.
I’m worth something. My life has value. The world I live in isn’t perfect, but I’m alive in it, and that’s what matters. No one has the right to make me feel as if it’s better for me to die. No one should ever have the ability to make me feel worthless. I am not a slave. I am not disposable. I am not replaceable. I am the only one of my kind that exists and I am pretty damn special. That said, I’m not one size fits all. I’m neither better nor worse than other people. I’m me. Some people can handle me. Great. Some people can’t. Their loss. I shouldn’t force myself to get along with people just as they shouldn’t force themselves to get along with me. I’m done apologizing for who I am. I am boisterous, snarky, clever, lazy, odd, opinionated, ranty, ravy, writy, artsy me. And I am proud.
Finally, the most important lesson I have learned in this process: there is no point in getting angry over things I can’t control. I can’t control how a given person is going to treat me or those close to me. I can’t control how people conduct themselves around me. I can’t control the decisions people make because if I did, they wouldn’t be their decisions, would they? If a person decides to cut me off for whatever reason, I can’t control it. If people I call friends wake up one morning and decide to make my life miserable, I can’t control that either. I have held on to so much rage over this time that I can barely remember what life was like before I had it. I’ve been chasing after this life that was taken from me and I’ve been pissed that I, a good person, was denied the happiness I had searched for and finally found simply because one or two people threw me away and everyone else followed their examples. I didn’t deserve the things that happened to me, dammit. I didn’t deserve to have the happiest years of my life tarnished by people who ultimately don’t matter. I didn’t deserve to lose my job when I worked so fucking hard to get it in the first place and was abused within it while I worked. I didn’t deserve to stare into the Abyss that had started eating at me mentally and emotionally.
And yet all of those things happened. Why? Because I chose to let them happen. Because I held onto my anger. Because I decided that being angry was the right thing to do. Was I justified? Fuck yes. But could I have controlled that better? Once again, fuck yes. I’m still angry, actually. But it’s not my motivation anymore. I freed myself ages ago from the clutches of despair, even though it was very tempting to return. My motivation now isn't to find that happiness that was stolen from me. It's to find a new one that I can create for myself so that it can never be taken again. And it's hard for me to be angry when I'm busily creating.
I am sad that so much time I had was wasted in the red rage I felt. However, I learned much from it. Specifically that I need to rescue myself because no one else will do it for me. I can love and care about people as much as I want, but I will be stupid if I ever depend on them again. That doesn't mean I love or care for them any less, only that my priorities have shifted. I'm number one. And for the whole time I've been number one, I've been getting a little happier with each passing day. My anger is fading into the past, where it belongs. Finally, I think I'm gonna be ok.
- RG
