And then you wake up. Then you look around. Nothing is holding you back. You have a plan. You have a path and route. You have an exit strategy and your speech which you’ve already prepared and rehearsed a thousand times.
So? What are you waiting for?
This could be it. This could be the moment when you face the crowd to pull off your trick.
No more forcing. No more coercing. No more living a life according to a calendar of “when” – as in when am I going to make a break for it? Or, when is it my turn to have the life I want to have?
We find ourselves at the baseline or at the conception of true happiness and literally everything else is just a decision away. We can move left or we can move to the right. We can decide to disengage or readjust so that we can re-engage on our own best terms.
No more arguing. No more negotiating with emotional terrorists. No more negotiating our terms and losing ourselves in the bargaining agreement.
There’s no more going along to get along and no more living a life according to the world around us.
Instead, now is the time to move.
So, go! Get up.
Get moving.
Gather your things and get yourself together because you and I are about to go on a really wild ride.
There’s no more rehearsals. There’s no more reasons to practice our speeches or reconsider our plans.
There’s nothing between us and the door, except for air and the useless excuses that we’ve used for years or possibly decades. There’s no more recalibrating our social compass and refiguring the reasons why we’ve stayed for so long. There’s no more deliberating over why we always failed to launch or kept along with the same everyday routine.
Now is more than a great word. Now is the time to offset our craziest thinking. Now is the time to offset our tragedies and offset our challenges by counterbalancing them with a plan and a system of options.
Now is the time to fill the tanks because we’re going on a trip.
Better yet, now is the time to breathe in deeply. Fill your lungs. Now, exhale.
Let this go. Let it out.
Fill your lungs once more. Breathe in as deeply as you can and then let the air go.
Inhale again. Now, give yourself a vision.
Close your eyes and see what you want. Build it and design this in your mind because above anything else, if you can’t see what you want then how are you going to whet your appetite and build the hunger to look for it.
Now, go. Get out there.
Find your passions. Find something.
Find anything that can offset the bullshit chatter that banters on in your head.
Now is a great time to build.
Start something new.
But start now.
Even if this is small – then fine, it’s small. So, what?
But keep in mind that small things can grow
(as long as we nurture them).
If you have to go at it alone, then remember that it’s okay to go at this alone.
It’s okay if the only army you have is an army of one – YOU, which is fine because at least this way, you’ll know who’s on your side – and who isn’t.
If we can’t get beyond our past or forget about the regrettable yesterdays; or if we keep reliving our mistakes or miseries, then look at something else.
Look away from the focus bias. Look away from our attention biases, which is our tendency to focus one side of our elements while ignoring others.
Remember, this is a symptom.
This is our response to stimuli. This is our response to the world around us and to external events, such as a perceived threat or threats to our safety or to an internal stress such as hunger or sadness. This is the danger and the bias of our attention. This is also us when we miss out on the big picture because our focus is lost on uncontrollable things – or irreversible things, unalterable things, or the unchangeable things.
There’s no litigating anything that is beyond our control. There is no way to relive or recreate the past. There is only now. This moment.
So . . .
Make something. Do something.
Look for an out. Create your exit strategy.
Prepare to launch.
Find a new style.
Find a new song, but make it something that puts fire in your heart.
To find happiness, we have to define it.
We have to plant this like a seed.
Nurture it.
Give it plenty of sunlight.
Feed it. Water it. Talk to it.
Do whatever it is to make this flourish.
In other words, plant the seeds of your hopes.
Let this sink into the soil of your life.
Let this germinate, grow, and reach its harvest.
And then . . .
Enjoy it.
Go out and find whatever it is you’re looking for – and learn to enjoy the journey.
Nothing comes easy. Nothing worthwhile is ever free.
No. I’m sorry. You’ll have to work for it.
You’ll have to find out what works for you, which is a crazy thing to say to someone with depressive thinking. This is a crazy thing to say to someone who lives with anxiety or faces everything with fear or contempt because it’s not like we’ve not been trying.
We’re all trying. We all have the right idea and maybe we might have the right plans but often, we find ourselves in the middle of the wrong execution.
So, then what?
What are we supposed to do?
What do we do when it seems like we can’t take another step? What do we do when we feel the impending doom? This is real too, the impending doom I mean. This is the anxiety. This is the fear that tragedy is either on its way or in the mail.
This is what it feels like to have those anxious thoughts or depressive whispers, just hovering over us, and breathing its steaming hot breath on our neck.
Yet, someone comes along and says, “If you want it, then you’ll have to work for it.” Meanwhile, all we’ve been doing is working on it. All we’ve been doing is finding ways just to survive.
Again, the plan to survive or to live and be happy is the right plan to have.
But we still need to have the right execution.
We can’t do the same thing and expect different results. Besides, I think there’s a word for this. In fact, I know there is.
I think they call this insanity. In fact, I know they do because sometimes I keep doing the same things too. I have my fair doses with this as well. All the time, in fact.
Perhaps this is why the objective is progress.
Not perfection.
A time comes when we wake up and somehow the threats are no longer threatening. The intimidations are not so intimidating. There comes a time when it is time to engage; it’s time to stop practicing and start performing.
It’s time to choose.
Choose happiness. Make this work.
Find a friend. Find a partner.
If you can’t find either then find yourself.
Find the road that leads to nowhere and take a spin.
Take a chance.
Take a shot because it’s not like we’re doing anything else.
(Are we?)
Find your hunger. Find your thirst.
Find the pit inside of you where the spark still lives.
Find this and gas the flames.
Look for this. And look hard too.
This way, we can look in another direction instead of staring at the same problems or the same people, places and things.
There is no rule that says we have to be miserable all the time. There’s no law or official statute; there’s no regulation nor a legislation that says we have to be stuck in the wrong mold – or in the wrong life – or constantly at odds with ourselves, overthinking, overanalyzing and overcompensating for the fact that inside we feel as if we are lacking.
Plant the seeds to your own hope. Plant as many as you can so that if one seed fails to germinate and grow then there’s no worries because we’ve planted enough seeds to grow fields. When we’re ready, we’ll harvest the following:
Our hopes
Our dreams (and above all)
Our happiness
Do this. And if this doesn’t work then do something else.
Either way, just don’t stop.
The Written Addiction 