We all have a side or two, which no one sees, and no one knows about. We have thoughts and ideas, and dreams, and, of course, we all have our own rituals and routines. We all have our own way of doing things, which become automatic or natural to us.
We don’t have to think about these things, like our morning rituals or the way we get ready after we wake up.
We find ourselves moving without notice or without thinking. We just go because we all have our daily patterns. We have our usual directions, or the ways we go, or the streets that we walk down.
Meanwhile, this is life, and life is filled with limitless combinations of what to do or which way to go.
Who is to say that my way is the right way or the best way.
I can only say that my way is the only way that I know.
There are no guarantees in life. There is no proof or evidence that your way will always work out for someone else.
We all have our own way of doing things.
And that’s fine.
No, really.
It’s fine.
There is no promise that everything is going to work out, perfectly. There is no way to correct the basic or random acts of fate.
We cannot change the destined way of how or when things start or when life ends.
I have no answer nor explanation that could justify why two people can start at the same place and find themselves in separate destinations.
I don’t know why things end or why we split up or grow apart. And I don’t know why love is not bulletproof or impervious to the designs of hardship.
I suppose that in a perfect world, love would never break and neither would we.
But this would be what happens in a perfect world.
And neither of us are perfect.
At the same time, I suppose I have always wanted to be perfect for you. But also, my biggest fear is that I will never be perfect for anyone, and that I am the problem, or that I am the least common denominator.
I don’t know why we fight or argue, nor do I understand why we say mean things to someone we love. At the same time, it seems clear that fights and mean things are only a symptom. This is not the problem.
No, this is what happens when our problems are prolonged and unaddressed. More accurately, this is what happens when our needs are not met, and thus, we find ourselves lashing out or acting resentful at the people who are closest to us —when in fact, we are not angry at anyone else. We are only angry at ourselves because we traded our dreams away or allowed us to become a lower priority, to which we never came first, not even to ourselves.
I see what happens when we settle for less. I see this more now and clearly too because in the end, I realize that what I’ve agreed to is less than what I wanted, when I’ve settled that is.
This is common by the way.
Furthermore, we find ourselves with the idea that we came up short.
We lost, somehow, or we failed ourselves because our needs were not met, our dreams became deferred, or we found that our life had become subpar, or substandard, and this is the real problem.
This is why we fight. This has nothing to do with anyone else.
This is because we failed ourselves.
We failed to believe that we have the right to hold out. Or maybe we didn’t stick up for ourselves or defend our right to have the life we want.
Maybe we wanted to have something more than we had and, in which case, we swore that the choice to be alone or to be without someone or something was too much to consider. So, we settled for less.
I understand the ideas of envy. I also understand the difference between admiration and being envious because I have lived most of my life being envious of others. I have lived with contempt. I have lived with resentment and, yes, I have lived with the ache from an ongoing question that asks “When is it my turn?”
I have held on and walked the line. I followed the bullshit rules with the belief that, fine, maybe someday, I’ll get what I want.
When is it your turn?
I love this question.
When is it your turn to have the life you want?
When are you going to give yourself permission to do what it takes to make this happen?
Before we say another thing to each other, I think it is important to realize that nothing happens if nothing happens, which is obvious, of course.
So, what are we prepared to do now?
We all know that there are steps to take.
We know that change is accomplished in stages which, of course, — I admit that this takes time and patience. This also takes endurance because the beginning can be awkward and foreign, or simply put, change can be uncomfortable. So, then?
Might as well get comfortable with being uncomfortable, right?
At least, this is what I have been told.
And I understand this too.
But same as we find ourselves moving in a daily routine, and the same as we have our simple habits, perhaps now is the time to form new ones.
We have to make new decisions.
For example, we know where we put our keys at night, and we know where we put our phone before we go to sleep. We know where we keep our wallet, and we know these things because they have become a habit.
We have formed these habits to free the mind from surface-level thinking, so that we can focus on more important tasks.
If we can learn old habits, then we can learn new ones too. Soon enough, our bodies will know which way to go without needing input from the mind.
But there’s more.
We have to give this time.
We have to give ourselves a timetable and a schedule.
Take this, for example. Look at us and the way we meet here every morning.
This has become my habit.
This is my morning routine; in which case, I don’t have to think about where to go or what to do. My body knows what to do and the mind is not bothered or thinking about where I put my coffee cup, or which button to hit to make my coffee at the strongest setting.
My body has adjusted to this routine.
If anything, the mind understands the absence of regularity.
And this?
This is my regular.
I have different sides to my personality. I have different shades that I try to hide from people. I have fears and anxieties. I have anger and shame and secrets that I hope are never uncovered or exploited.
I have irrational worries that the sky is falling. And, at best, all I can do is try to find a coping mechanism to allow me to replace my thoughts with an action.
I am no different from anyone else.
I wonder when my turn will come.
I wonder if my life will evolve and be as beautiful as I hope it can be — someday.
I worry that the hands of time will pull a trick on me or that the sky will rain on my parade.
I can see more now about the choices I have made and how I’ve jumped to conclusions.
I can see how my assumptions can be unhelpful and lead me to decide or act accordingly. To be clear, I can see why and how I have spoken out of line or picked a fight or sabotaged something, simply because I believed that my life was going to fall apart anyway. So?
Why wait?
Blow everything to shit, right now, and let’s get the pain over with.
Am I right?
No.
This is wrong.
Is it safe to say that happy people are free from stupid decisions?
I don’t know.
I don’t think so.
But I can see how unhappy times and unhappy thinking can lead us astray.
I can see how we paint ourselves in a corner and make our own worst fears come true.
I can see why thoughts and insecurities lead us to believe the worst, and next, we find ourselves aboard the runaway train with no breaks and on the way to self-destructive behaviors.
I can see how trauma leaks in. I can see how fear takes over.
I can see how our emotional settings can be uncomfortable, and thus, we want to know why.
We want to find accountability.
But sometimes, the habit we formed is to assume the worst. The worst part about this is we want the best but our assumptions tell us, nope. Sorry kid.
We want the best for us and for each other.
We don’t want to fight, and we don’t want to grow apart.
But we do.
We react to an emotionally-based assumption to which, we tend to make our worst nightmares come true — but hey, at least this makes sense to us now.
At least, we understand why we were so afraid.
And what have we done, except make our worst fears come true?
Right?
I have lived in fear and with the insecure notion that I am ugly, or that I am unmatchable, unacceptable, and I have lived with the sad ideas that come with my depression. I have lived with the challenges of anticipation and the anxiety that the worst is about to happen, at any given moment.
The sky is going to fall or the bottom of my life is going to fall out from under me.
And then what?
These assumptions have done nothing but cause me to act in defense of my worst fears. So, rather than live well or work for my best possible life, or rather than try, or rather than work hard or find the secret of my endurance, I lived in the fears that tell me, no matter what, you can only come up short, at best.
I want to break this cycle.
I want to stop all of this, here and now. However, I am aware that if this is up to me, then it is up to me to create the habit to reverse this problem.
It is up to me to change my thinking, to change my behavior, and inevitably, this is the only way for me to change my feelings and to better my emotional settings.
If I want to live better, I have to be better.
No more excuses. No more quick fixes.
No more quitting. And no more self-sabotage.
I understand that I make mistakes.
By the way, I have said this to you before.
However, it is important that I say this to you again.
I make mistakes.
Mistakes do not make me.
Unless I let them make me, or let this be my habit
The time for self-destruction is over.
It’s raining out.
It is Monday morning and there are some new changes on the horizon.
I have the chance to live a brand-new life now.
But again, if it is up to me, then it is up to me to make this happen. Therefore, living in yesterday’s habits will only leave me with yesterday’s problems.
But, and to be fair —
You have taught me to realize that some of my yesterdays were pretty good.
In fact, some of my yesterdays were the best days of my life.
And see?
That makes this (and you) a habit worth keeping.
The Written Addiction 