SOTD- Patrick Park- Here We Are
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpI5tJoncS0
We can't see past our own sad stories and wonder what we're missing.
We can't see past our own sad stories and forget how to listen.
Change is a bitch. Not original, I know. But precisely because it is so hard is why we have to keep reminding ourselves of that. We have to be patient with ourselves and practice the change. Hopefully, practice makes better. As I move towards what I hope will be real, mind-changing, life-giving change, I'm just observing myself. My thoughts. My actions. Me.
It's hard to make the decision to stay with myself. And I have to do it a hundred times a day (at least). I'm bored at work. Be bored (don't go grab a pop or handful of candy). I have work I don't want to do. Allow yourself to not want to do it- then do it. Or observe everything- and don't do it (and accept the consequences). But escaping doesn't help. I'm lonely on Friday night. Feel lonely. Sometimes life is lonely. And as I'm realizing I can feel a whole range of emotions and face them, it's liberating. I guess I'm not as fragile as I thought I was.
The other day I had to re- break up with the last guy I was dating. He texted me under the guise of having only a single question, and it turned into a day long textravaganza. I had to admit that nothing had changed for him and nothing had changed for me, and we were still in no position to be dating. After I instructed him in no uncertain terms to quit contacting me, I felt really good- really strong, really sure, really confident. For about 30 seconds. Then the panic started. Why isn't he contacting me? Where is he? What will I do now? I really liked having him again. It gave me a sense of meaning and purpose and excitement. All things I'm really lacking right now. Plus I really like him. It hurt. It felt like we broke up all over again. It's funny how, in the pain of missing him, my mind quickly bolted between all of it's normal escape routes- go grab a drink or walk over to the refrigerator and eat, open an OK cupid account and move on. Do something to numb this pain because you can't handle it. What did I definitely NOT want to do (which eating, drinking, or dating would have avoided for only a brief second)? Sit, feel the pain of the loss of something important in my life, and cry. But that's what I did. I curled up in my nice soft bed and cried. It's funny how when you start crying about one thing you realize that you have lots of other things you needed to cry about too. So I cried for a little while. And when I was out of tears for the time being, I felt a very little bit better. But that's how emotions work, right? They are meant to be felt- sometimes with our whole bodies. Usually for a while. And as I practice staying with the present moment, even when that includes unpleasant stuff, that means I have to stay with the tears and feel them.
I guess it's easier to make the decision to stay with myself when I think of it as practice. Each time I resist the urge to run away from my feelings is a time I practice staying with them. And each time I practice staying with my feelings, the practice of staying with my feelings is just a little more natural for me. And each time I actually listen to my feelings and my body and my mind instead of scarfing them down and pushing them away, I'm a little closer to actually hearing (through all of the noise of my thoughts) the life that is underneath.
One person's journey to living in the present moment (I realize that perhaps you can't journey to live in the present moment and perhaps making any goal is self-defeating in the world of zen, but I still have to try, no?)
Allaholic?
We're all ___aholics.
Addiction has been defined as “a state of being dependent on a certain substance, which is harmful or dangerous for the physical or mental health of the person, for his social well-being and economical functioning of the subject”. When you type the word ‘addiction’ into popular search engines, you find links for various substance dependence sites. When I sift through these sites, I find little information that is helpful to me; yet, almost daily I find myself making decisions that are bad for me- decisions that are harmful for my physical or mental health for my social well-being and economical functioning. I am not taking hits of crack or lighting any pipes. My drugs are not nearly so obvious to pinpoint. They do not come in powder nor plant form. My drugs are daily decisions that I make. Decisions to which I keep running back. I know they are bad for me, but they are so beautiful in the moment, and I am irresistibly compelled toward these decisions. Since no one is over my shoulder telling me that what I have is an addiction that is may be akin to a drug addiction, and that the cycles in which I find myself are not much different than the cycles of many other addicts, I find myself going around the same mountain over and over again.
Addiction has been defined as “a state of being dependent on a certain substance, which is harmful or dangerous for the physical or mental health of the person, for his social well-being and economical functioning of the subject”. When you type the word ‘addiction’ into popular search engines, you find links for various substance dependence sites. When I sift through these sites, I find little information that is helpful to me; yet, almost daily I find myself making decisions that are bad for me- decisions that are harmful for my physical or mental health for my social well-being and economical functioning. I am not taking hits of crack or lighting any pipes. My drugs are not nearly so obvious to pinpoint. They do not come in powder nor plant form. My drugs are daily decisions that I make. Decisions to which I keep running back. I know they are bad for me, but they are so beautiful in the moment, and I am irresistibly compelled toward these decisions. Since no one is over my shoulder telling me that what I have is an addiction that is may be akin to a drug addiction, and that the cycles in which I find myself are not much different than the cycles of many other addicts, I find myself going around the same mountain over and over again.
Let me give you an example. When I was 21, I was dating this guy named Alan. When Alan introduced himself, he said, “I work with computers”. I think, “Oh, a computer programmer! That’s a good job!” Turns out, Alan was a receptionist who happened to work in front of a computer. I should have gone running in the other direction from this obvious lying loser, but, unfortunately I did not. The first night we hung out was a blast. He was buying my friends and I rounds of drinks, we were hitting the dance floor hard, and he was telling me how excited he was to meet such an obviously smart and beautiful girl. He got my digits. “I’ll call you tomorrow” he promised at the end of the night. I did not hear from him the next day. I felt a little sad, but I accepted the rejection with dignity. This time. You see, I was not yet hooked. Alan eventually called with some excuse about how his dad had stopped by, and he had gotten in a fight with him and just could not talk afterward, but he added that he hoped I would please give him another chance. I did. This interchange pretty much made up our whole relationship. Sometimes the excuses were better than others. One time he actually told me he could not hang out with me because he had to help his friend clean a deer. But we went round and round this cycle for over a year. When we had a good time, it was so good. So fun. He was so attentive to me, so nice to my friends, so good at conversation and affection. But I could not have him. It would not last. And he kept me coming back and back for more. Each time I came back I had less dignity. I sacrificed more of myself. I planned my life around trying to “run” into him. I thought about him all the time. Drama from the relationship made my work suffer. Looking back there was so little real substance to our “relationship”. I was an addict seeking the next high. The next escape from my life. My reality. But I am getting ahead of myself.
I need to make sure you understand something right away. I am not an expert on addiction, and this blog is not intended to cover addiction research or literature. It will be a personal exploration of my addicitions which is intended to make you smile at points, to make you think at points, and to propose a view on life decisions that may help shape yours. As a natural observer and introspector, I have observed my repeated bad decisions (and those of my friends) and wondered why we continue to make the decisions that we do. I hope that you benefit from this blog as I know that these thoughts have greatly improved my decision making, and allowed me to be a good friend to others to help them make better decisions. I hope to be a friend to you as well. Because everyone needs a friend sometime to smack some sense in to them about their addictive habits.
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