Acceptance

Acceptance Butterfly

I can’t do anything about bad luck or anything else that is out of my control. I can’t avoid problems. The avoidance of misery could result in the inadvertent avoidance of opportunity and seems like a misery in itself. I can’t just ignore problems or shut them out either, especially when those problems involve my own children. So what do I do with these problems? Do I have to do anything with them other than accept that they are a part of my life?

Ever since I was a child, I have had an absolute sense of fairness and justice. If something isn’t fair, it makes me rage. Sometimes, I mistake misfortune for injustice. If something is unfair or unjust, ruminating on it doesn’t make it better. It just makes me feel like a victim and then I get angry. Being angry is okay, but it doesn’t solve the problem or make things right. So I guess I can’t act like a victim, because that will just augment the issue.

Some say that thinking positively will translate into positive things, thus reframing ones problems and trying to find something positive such as a life lesson or silver lining, will make things better. Last year, my dear grandmother died. I watched her die a horrible, slow death. It was a horrific experience that I am still struggling to come to terms with. How can one find positivity in that? I promise you, it didn’t teach her or anybody else a damned thing other than life can be really crappy. There is no silver lining. The experience was shit, and you can’t dress shit up. Agonizing over what lessons one is supposed to get from monumentally awful life experiences can be torture, and oftentimes it leads one down the ‘why me’ path when we struggle to find meaning in them, and then we are back to being an angry victim. And isn’t habitually reframing negative experiences a form of denial? Denial that bad things happen and a belief that only good things disguised as awful things happen?

Nobody’s life is free of difficulties and complications. Everyone experiences misery and pain. So if nobody is exempt, perhaps there is more wisdom in the adage ‘Shit Happens’ than we realise?

I need to accept that life is littered with difficulties and difficult people. That isn’t to say that when I see an injustice, I will ignore it, it just means that I need to stop feeling as if my difficulties make me special. The universe isn’t picking on me. Shit happens to everyone.

Point Zero

Poitn Zero

Right now, I am at point zero in my life; the point where the x and y axis intercept. I am ready to plot a few points. I refuse to call it rock bottom, because as soon as you vocalize that you have hit rock bottom, the universe proves you wrong. I know very little about anything, except I need to actively change the way I do things because I am not thrilled about how I am feeling about life right now. I also know that becoming obsessive and extreme about improving my circumstances is not the way to go if I want sustained, long-term change. (I have been there, done that, become despondent and fizzled out.)
Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of great things about my life. I have a wonderful partner in life and crime, Mr G. I have a good job. I can pay my bills and feed my family. I acknowledge that I am privileged and lucky in so many ways, but that doesn’t mean things cannot be better, and it doesn’t invalidate my experience.
I am slightly overweight which is not good for my health or my self-confidence. I have other (totally treatable) health issues I have ignored and they are starting to become bigger than they have to be. I have 3 teenagers who are the biggest source of stress in my life. (I am unsure where I went wrong with them, but that is a whole series of posts on its own.) Mr G and I don’t own our own home, which comes with its own set of frustrations. The last couple of years we have experienced death, run-ins with dishonest people and one run of bad luck after another, and I have let things get to me. I have lost motivation and I don’t feel excited about the future. I am in a rut. Things needs to change. I tend to look at things objectively and analytically, except for my own circumstances. Perhaps I need to take a step back and look more rationally at the things that make me so irrationally unhappy. Part of my process of being objective and analytical is to write my thought processes down, hence this blog. Another part of being objective is to seek advice from others. I hope if you are reading this that you will make some constructive comments to help my life metamorphosis.

Blogs Are Evil

Blog-Are-Evil-Image Blogs are evil. Before you get your keyboards all hot pointing out that I am writing about the evils of blogs in a blog post on a blog I created, don’t worry, the hypocritical irony is not lost on me.

I am not saying all blogs are evil, I am just saying that a lot are. Personally, subscribing to dozens of blogs and buying into the philosophies of self-proclaimed experts on a plethora of subject matter in an effort to make myself a better/smarter/healthier/thinner/fitter/more efficient/shinier/polished person, actually made be woefully unhappy. Is there anything wrong with wanting to improve yourself? I don’t think so. Is there something wrong with subscribing to black & white absolutes about the way we should be living our lives? I think there is.

Social media is also a malevolent beast. It constantly bombards us with photos of people living amazing, care-free lives, eating gourmet meals and traveling the world, leaving us feeling hard-done-by and disappointed with our mundane existence.

The truth is, bloggers don’t have universally applicable axioms to our problems, as much as we would like to believe that somebody out there holds the secret to life’s challenges. One blogger’s advice for weight loss might work for some people. The advice might work for you if you have a similar lifestyle, job, number of children, live in a similar neighbourhood, have similar friendship group dynamics, like the same things, enjoy the same hobbies and earn the same wages as they do. Chances are, their advice won’t work for you in the entirety in which it is presented, whether on weight loss, exercise, being a good parent, keeping organised, cooking healthy meals for your family or getting ahead in the workplace. Chances are, life will interfere with that meal plan/exercise regimen/kids’ routine, and when it does, we feel like failures.

The problem is not with the ideas themselves, it is with the absoluteness which they are sold and bought. It is human nature, when presented with persuasive ideas, to buy into them in an all-or-nothing cult-like fashion, and that is what I have a problem with. The internet is full of sugar-free, vegan, yoga, Cross-Fit, super-mom clean freak extremists touting their way as the only way, and portraying those who don’t follow their ‘gospel’ as inferior or weak. Followers of these blogs create dysfunctional communities with evangelical-esk preachy contributors that portray themselves as perfect partakers of the wares and make the ‘lukewarm’ feel inadequate and like failures. It is easy to forget that a lot of the bloggers that give us advice on how to live a very small part of our busy lives do it for a living. This means they have a lot more time on their hands to get it right than you do.

And another thing; if you have 1,276 friends or are following 289 accounts on social media, chances are a small portion of them will be traveling, eating out that night or going through a momentous life experience on any given day. But I promise you, nobody is constantly living in a perfect picture-worthy life.

A survey conducted in April 2017 by Eventbrite, a global event technology platform, found that more than half of people aged between 18 and 34 that had attended an event in recent months had attended the events for the sole purpose of sharing the experience on social media for likes and comments. This means that a lot of social media utopic moments are orchestrated.

Life is a constant shit storm, with an occasional peppering of joy and pleasure. Life is about weathering the storm as best we can. We all live very different lives, and the challenge is to find a way that works for us. We are all doing our best, and sometimes, just sometimes, that is enough. I am only just figuring that out.