Life, Fear, & the Ego

It has been a long time since I have actually been able to sit down, write, and finish by posting whatever my mind threw at the screen. I have... quite a lot of drafts saved up that I couldn't get myself to post for some reason. For a while, I think I felt that I didn't have anything positive or good enough to say.

So many things were happening that were dragging me down. So many negative things kept flying at me, slowly breaking me apart. I know, I ignored my own advice, and kept quiet about it all. All this led to me, once again, falling back to a place where I felt numbing out my emotions was what I needed to do.(WHY?!) 

So now that I am in the process of climbing out of the dark hole I threw myself in, I can't help but be a little disappointed in myself. Then again, it is just one more lesson that was thrown at me so that hopefully, I learn from my mistake...that was made multiple times. 

Anyway, over the past few months, I was asking a lot of people a few questions; some of them I knew, others I didn't. Mostly the questions were for a book I am writing, but there is one thing that was present in almost everyone's answer that I wanted to talk about. (Stick with me here, it all ties together)

Fear. In one way or another, when I asked about certain subjects, such as how they make decisions, their goals, their personality, they were all influenced by fear. I guess that is the main reason I couldn't get myself to post all that I had written too. "It's not good enough," or, "I should be doing better," or any of those bullshit thoughts, are all the voice of the ego.

All of us, or at least most, are guilty of letting fear control the decisions we make almost every day. Whether we know it or not, I feel like fear has become so deeply instilled in us that we honestly don't even recognize it anymore. I know for me personally, this has been true for a long time now. Don't get me wrong, if you are one of the few that has been able to shut it out, my hat is off to you. But for the rest of us, and I know this is 100% true for myself, it is going to take a lot of work to not only ignore the fear, but recognize where the fear is lurking.

"So many choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality" 

This is the quote that made me think about all of this. When I first heard it, I must of repeated it about 10 times in my head. I flipped through some of the responses I had written down from those who had answered my questions, and many had said something along the lines of, "I'm more of a practical person," and,  "I don't let emotions effect me." Even many of the people I know or grew up with have a kind of mindset that blocking out emotions is something that betters us, or protects us in some way. 

I mean, shit, isn't this kind of what I was doing the past few months? 

So then it got me thinking, how much of that "practical" way of life, is one that is really based on fear. Where we make decisions based on past experiences where the end result was pain. Is it understandable? Hell yeah, and sometimes I don't think it is even something that is bad. It is when we let ourselves build it all up inside so that we get calloused to not only the bad, but the world in general.  

Picture by: Cuito Cuanavale

I think that is the cycle that I am trying to break right now. I think it is definitely good to be weary about some things, but not to be so numb and calloused towards so much that this world has to offer... and with the many years of my life that I already gave away to addiction, I want to experience all I can and not let fear or ego control my choices. Because when you think about it, once you let fear move in and start changing the way you think, it starts taking over almost every decision that you can make. Whether it be debating on doing something that day, some other choice, and especially in relationships and love interests. I think it is with the latter that I really need to remember this quote and try to push that fear as far away as I can.  

I think it is a part of that complete feeling of peace that so many of us are constantly trying to achieve. But, in order to get there, we have to let that armor go. Let the real you decide, not fear. 

"There are two choices in this world: Love, or Fear. Choose love, and don't ever let fear turn you against your heart."

Drugs, Addiction, and the Future?

Image by: Lara Cores

There has been so much on my mind lately. With being concerned with me still trying to fix some of the wreckage that my addict self managed to leave behind, to me being back in school, which leads to me thinking about my future, which I realized actually really scares the shit out of me. 

Before it, whatever the future was, never really crossed my mind. Or if it did, it was there only for a few seconds before the next wave of codeine washed it away. So now that my sea of codeine is (thankfully) all dried up, so many new things are in front of me. 

Don't get my wrong , I'm not complaining... It's just that back then, the "future" had a completely different meaning. Most of it having to do with trying to forget the past, and trying to sell enough so I had enough money to live an addict's version of comfortable, and have enough pills or whatever to get me by. I even found my old diary, and numerous pages includes me thinking I wasn't going make it past 25. 

So first of all... Fuck that. I will happily live past 25! We all should! Besides, why would I wanna miss being able to rent a car by myself. Can you say, MILESTONE?!

 But in all honesty, finding those pages was definitely strange. I didn't recognize the person who wrote those fading words. I didn't even want to.

Original Image by: Emdot   (I distorted it a bit)

So then I started to revisit the thoughts on my future. As much as they scared me, I saw excitement somewhere in that same fear. It might take a good while... It will Definitely take some time to fight and get readjusted to life without addiction in the drivers seat, 2 years for me now, but as I look back, and when I read those pages... This strange, new, scary, emotional, and hard life is still what I would choose instead of the previous. 

There's so much left to be discovered, to experience, to be felt... That most likely sounded corny, but it's true. Stick with me. 

There is all this stuff I am finding out about myself. Some might be strange to you..... Like it was for me when I discovered the secret nerd in me who loved studying and learning. Didn't see that one coming. 

So really, who knows what the future has in store for us. Worrying about it, well, doesn't do shit but make everything more stressful. Without being tied down to addiction, that whole saying... what is it, "you can be anything you want if you try hard enough," or something of that sort, might actually be true. 

I guess the point is that.. Well we aren't tied down. We can work towards anything without worrying about having enough of whatever our poison of choice was, or if there is a dealer in this or that city, or any of that stuff. And I don't know about you, but I wanna find out what I can actually do. For myself of course, and also as (excuse the language) a fuck you to those who thought/said we wouldn't amount to anything. 

It might not be easy getting there, but I am almost 100 percent sure it is going to be so much more worth it to work and find our potential. Whatever the hell that might be. 

In the end, I guess the future will be the result of a whole bunch of "right now's". So then I guess it's just right now that I have to think about. And right now, is always completely in our control. And right now, thanks to this little therapy session(?), I'm doing alright, no longer terrified of that future thats been occupying my mind for a while. 

You guys (blogging community) are my strength a lot of the times, so for that I need to say THANK YOU. Stay strong everyone.

Addiction & Frustration & Writing

And this is how the shit-storm all starts again… that is, if I let it.

Summer has officially started which means no more classes and no homework, which all comes down to having nothing to keep me busy.

Complaining about not having homework and classes…yeah, it even surprises me.

After drugs, I think we all try to avoid that dangerous feeling of being bored. What’s that saying? “Idle hands are the devils playground?” Guess I now understand it.

I’m sure most of my fellow “recovering” addicts out there can agree with me when I say, it fucking drives me nuts Just sitting there can make your brain pull out all sorts of memories from the very back corner of your mind that brings out…what were those things we were trying to numb out? Oh yeah…emotions.

 

Image by: Mindaugas

Well I knew I needed to keep myself busy, so the first thing that popped into my head was writing. So here I am, just letting the words flow out. Like many of you, writing just…well I guess I can only describe it as something I NEED to do. The best form of therapy I know.

So one thing I need to do is get back involved in the blogging world. I know it always helps me, somehow I just never end up posting the things I write. I guess it’s a confidence thing? Don’t think it’s, “good enough,” or something like that.

Then I thought about it… I can’t let my insecurities stop me from doing what I love, not anymore. That is after all where that happiness comes from that we are always looking for right?

Besides, the responses or messages you get from the people you meet while blogging, can literally make your day sometimes. I know many of you have for me. (THANK YOU!)

So, besides blogging I have also decided to finally try writing my novel that has been on my to-do list since I was 7…or somewhere around there. So if any of you are writing out there, and have advice, I would LOVE to hear it.

To end, I guess being bored can also be a good thing. It gives you an opportunity to try something new, find a new hobby, or write every random word going on in your head. The hard part is just getting started.

Stay strong everyone. And have a good night.