Something strange happens when your worst fears come true.
When you wake to find your nightmares live and breathe, and your life breaks to little bits in front of your face. When you can only helplessly look on while the worst happens and it can't seem to get any worse, and then does. In those moments, you die a little. Pieces of your heart and mind are chipped away, never to be recovered. And it hurts awfully. But this is to be expected. It is the logical outcome of the situation at hand. It's easy to understand why you feel the way you do. That heartbreak is not what is strange.
I think most of us fall asleep most nights worrying about all the terrible things that could happen to us. We allow those thoughts to run over and over in the treadmill of our minds until they become soothing to us. We spend years cultivating lives motivated by preventing worst-case scenarios. So on the off chance that one day we wake up and worst-case has pushed its way through the front door, we are rarely surprised. And we react accordingly. According to plan, we fall down in a heap and sob until we can't anymore. Our reaction to fears coming true isn't strange, either. We've practiced that part in our minds.
And after we've cried our tears and wallowed for the allotted time, we get up. We wake up with tear-soaked pillows and heavy hearts and we keep going. We go about our lives, performing the same routines, if only with small variations. We go to work or school much the way we did before. We may not realize it right away, but things are different--brighter, sharper. Without even realizing it, we have become stronger. Some people notice this about themselves right away and become prideful about it and vow to never let themselves sink so low again... Getting stronger after facing resistance also isn't strange.
But some of us take longer. The realization comes slowly at first. Little events unfold differently. We stand up for ourselves and others when we wouldn't have before. Reactions that we planned out before happen spontaneously. Hesitation decreases. As the sun rises and sets, and weeks and months pass, we become more sure about who we are. And we too realize we are stronger. But only because we know how vulnerable we are. It becomes beautiful.
This is what is strange: when your worst fears come true, you have nothing left to be afraid of, and this is a good thing.
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20 June 2013
05 June 2013
How Much Is Your Self-Worth? A General Rules Post, Kind Of
They are back! That's right, the General Rules of love are back, if only temporarily. So be happy.
Lately I've been reading some self-help books, old journals of mine, and inspirational quotes. And I've noticed a peculiar vein running through most of them. If you could distill the messages in all of them down to a single sentence, it would be: the only thing you can control is yourself.
This is interesting because it seems so self-evident. It seems like a trite platitude at first glance. I just imagine some valley girl from the nineties sassily exclaiming, "DUH!" as she twists some pink gum on her finger. But like most cliches it is so obvious that we forget it as soon as we hear it, and then go about our lives trying to control everything except for ourselves. We get frustrated about hitting red lights, birds pooping on our newly-cleaned cars, getting stuck behind the old woman at the grocery store who still writes checks, and people just disappointing us in general.
This asinine behavior vindicates itself especially in times of emotional trouble. When lovers leave, when family goes astray, and when things wither and die are the times when we try to grip the tightest. But we find quickly that the harder we squeeze, the quicker things fall apart. And then we beat ourselves to a pulp for not controlling something we had no control over in the first place. So label it a self-evident, trivial platitude all you want, it bears repeating--and often.
The next thing I noticed is that our ability to internalize this obvious truth is tightly linked to our self-worth. Usually those who have made their peace with that phrase can feel alright when everything is going wrong. Those who have learned that they can only control themselves through soul-wracking defeats are the calmest when the tempests of life swirl around them. On the other hand, those sad people who vainly think they can have the slightest control over anything outside themselves are the first to fall to pieces.
This is because they associate their worth as an individual with how "put-together" and "perfect" their lives are. It is possible to live under this delusion for small periods of time. When things are going according to our best-laid plans, we are apt to think that things are going right because we willed the outside factors to be arranged just how we wanted. But eventually our plans will come up against something we cannot control. And those who associate success and self-esteem with their false sense of control will crumble. Those who instead turn inward and work on themselves and on their own behavior, realizing that that is their only true choice, will rise above their tribulations.
This problem happens most often with others' freedom of choice. And this most often in love. When we not only love someone, but absolutely require them to survive, we are essentially building a giant house of control-cards. The problem with this (beside the obvious reason) is that whether or not that house stays up isn't completely up to you. When it falls, it won't matter how quickly you can grasp at the fluttering cards.
We must separate our self-worth from outside sources and learn through internal observation what makes us wonderful. The nice thing about accepting this platitude is that the more you control yourself, the better you will feel about you. Yes, I realize this is hard. If it were easy everyone would do it. Overcoming yourself is the hardest thing you will ever do.
In closing, I've found that most of the time, life is a series of acts of letting go.
You're welcome. You don't need to go to that Tony Robbins seminar anymore.
[Keep Following.]
Lately I've been reading some self-help books, old journals of mine, and inspirational quotes. And I've noticed a peculiar vein running through most of them. If you could distill the messages in all of them down to a single sentence, it would be: the only thing you can control is yourself.
This is interesting because it seems so self-evident. It seems like a trite platitude at first glance. I just imagine some valley girl from the nineties sassily exclaiming, "DUH!" as she twists some pink gum on her finger. But like most cliches it is so obvious that we forget it as soon as we hear it, and then go about our lives trying to control everything except for ourselves. We get frustrated about hitting red lights, birds pooping on our newly-cleaned cars, getting stuck behind the old woman at the grocery store who still writes checks, and people just disappointing us in general.
This asinine behavior vindicates itself especially in times of emotional trouble. When lovers leave, when family goes astray, and when things wither and die are the times when we try to grip the tightest. But we find quickly that the harder we squeeze, the quicker things fall apart. And then we beat ourselves to a pulp for not controlling something we had no control over in the first place. So label it a self-evident, trivial platitude all you want, it bears repeating--and often.
The next thing I noticed is that our ability to internalize this obvious truth is tightly linked to our self-worth. Usually those who have made their peace with that phrase can feel alright when everything is going wrong. Those who have learned that they can only control themselves through soul-wracking defeats are the calmest when the tempests of life swirl around them. On the other hand, those sad people who vainly think they can have the slightest control over anything outside themselves are the first to fall to pieces.
This is because they associate their worth as an individual with how "put-together" and "perfect" their lives are. It is possible to live under this delusion for small periods of time. When things are going according to our best-laid plans, we are apt to think that things are going right because we willed the outside factors to be arranged just how we wanted. But eventually our plans will come up against something we cannot control. And those who associate success and self-esteem with their false sense of control will crumble. Those who instead turn inward and work on themselves and on their own behavior, realizing that that is their only true choice, will rise above their tribulations.
This problem happens most often with others' freedom of choice. And this most often in love. When we not only love someone, but absolutely require them to survive, we are essentially building a giant house of control-cards. The problem with this (beside the obvious reason) is that whether or not that house stays up isn't completely up to you. When it falls, it won't matter how quickly you can grasp at the fluttering cards.
We must separate our self-worth from outside sources and learn through internal observation what makes us wonderful. The nice thing about accepting this platitude is that the more you control yourself, the better you will feel about you. Yes, I realize this is hard. If it were easy everyone would do it. Overcoming yourself is the hardest thing you will ever do.
In closing, I've found that most of the time, life is a series of acts of letting go.
You're welcome. You don't need to go to that Tony Robbins seminar anymore.
[Keep Following.]
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