Written June 22, 2020.
It’s been four years since I last wrote on this blog.
Donald Trump has been president for four years.
Yet, when I think about all that has passed in four years in regards to both this blog (my personal life) and the presidency (outside life), both of those timelines seem mutually exclusive.
Personally, in the last four years I’ve learned what I’m good at, where I’m valued, and what I’m capable of accomplishing. I’ve also learned what I lack, where I struggle inter- and intra-personally, and what I deem virtually impossible.
Externally, in the last four years I’ve seen the spread of hate and divide. I’ve seen people who stand on a soapbox and scream into the void before knowing what they’re saying. I’ve seen people use their pain as their platform for hate because they can’t find the willpower to stare it straight in the face and say “I own you, not the other way around.”
Essentially, we all just suck at shutting up.
I’ve learned a lot of lessons over those 4 years. I’ve looked long and hard at myself and the parts of me that cause stress and tension in my life. I’ve listened to people who tell me when my attitude sucks or I’m being a bitch. I’ve learned to admit when I’m wrong. But most of all, I’ve learned how to better empathize myself to other people in hopes of understanding and connecting with people’s hearts and minds.
This has taught me one major thing: the world is full of pain and trauma and until we learn to fight those demons, we’ll be stuck in a never-ending cycle.
And it’s funny, because for as far as we have come as a species, as much as we know about science and life and technology, and as much as the rise to dominance that social media and the internet has attained, we’re even worse at connecting with each other.
The thing that shows me this the most is the fact that I’ve neglected this blog for four years. This came out of a need for a place to put my thoughts, a need to share my lessons learned and hope to help other people, or really just myself, as I read back through these old posts and am floored by how eloquent and intelligent I was at the start. I truly blame social media and the internet for essentially dumbing me down. News flash: that’s the goal.
You think the internet and media in general isn’t specifically made to manipulate you and brainwash you? Do you really think that most of what we experience on the daily every year is not a direct result of the delving into our screens? Do you think if tomorrow, the entire grid was wiped out, and for a year we were forced to live a life without technology, that we would still be so bad at connecting with one another? Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware of the apocalyptic possibilities of people losing their damn minds without technology. But I truly think that forcing human interaction on a greater scale would solve a lot of problems. Go figure it’s literally my job to make people engage on social media.
I’ve lived within city limits for 6 years now. You’d think being around so many people all the time would be stimulating and engaging, yet I’ve come to realize that it just pushes people further into their phones, further into disengagement from the real world. I’m guilty of it; I’ve caught myself purposely checking my phone just to avoid making eye contact with people on the street. I’ve caught myself nervous to make real life connections with people whose lives I know strictly through social media. I’ve caught myself wanting to be stimulated by other people’s energy, but having absolutely no desire to talk or engage with them out of social exhaustion.
I thought living in the city would be so amazing, and for the first few years, it was. I was meeting so many new and interesting people, making connections and friends that would later be incredibly useful both socially and professionally. Then one day I accepted a painful realization: I was keeping up appearances every time I was around these people.
Could I even say who I was? I hate talking about myself. I was answering the same questions so often that the answers came out like memorized lines, yet I couldn’t even say that I was being sincere. I had no idea how to be vulnerable, and I started to see how my body, mind, and soul were being directly affected by this lack of sincerity.
As a child, I really felt like I knew who I was pretty well. I was always introspective, sentimental. The cogs in my brain were always turning and I was able to express myself, especially through words, so well. I knew what made me happy and I knew how to be alone.
Throughout my late teens/early 20s, I began to lose touch with myself. I can only say I realize that now in hindsight. I’m sure this is common for most people, but why do we let it happen? Aren’t these supposed to be the years that the best memories are made? We’re young, full of spunk and adventure, and yet most of us are struggling with crippling anxiety or depression.
I am blessed enough to say that any anxiety or depression I dealt with was not crippling. For 24 years I’ve avoided the need for therapy or medication, and I’ve been strong enough to work through most of my problems on my own. Or so I thought.
My soul-searching took up home in other people, mostly. I’ve gone 8 years now without having a serious romantic relationship. It became part of my identity, with family and friends asking me about my love life and me feeling shame about having nothing significant to report. Any romantic escapades I had, I tried to move them too fast out of feeling like I needed to fill that void. That void became darker and deeper until I realized what needed to fill it in the first place: myself.
I have probably only started to acknowledge what I love about myself in the past two years, max. Everything I thought I needed in a partner became all of the things I value in myself: my personal strength and drive to keep moving no matter what, my capacity for love and empathy for others, the ways I so easily make friends. I began to fill in the void with puzzle pieces until I realized how complete I was just as myself. What’s funny is that now, my next partner has to be pretty dang special to be part of my life, because I won’t settle for anything that takes away from the wholeness of my life.
It took some spotlighting my wounds to make it this far. I had to make peace with everything that hurt me, and love it anyways. Religion says that forgiveness is the answer, and while many may think that’s a conditional statement, I think it’s important to at the very least always forgive yourself. When you forgive yourself for the things of your past that cause you pain and discomfort, and you love yourself anyways, you find that your capacity for loving others grows exponentially.
In my last post on this blog, I say that you must love everyone, because everyone is right and everyone is wrong. If you find yourself in the wrong, and make the effort to be in the right, people can forgive you because they love you. Where we are at as a collective now, however, is living in fear of being wrong, because chances are people won’t forgive you, so we stick to our guns even if we can learn and be better. There are problems on both of these sides, of course, and I think that’s why we are struggling so hard to move forward as a society.
If you really think you’re perfect and always in the right, I dare you to ask the people in your life what they don’t like about you. I promise, there’s something. Maybe follow it up with asking what they do like about you, to soften the blow.
We fight about the dumbest things, nowadays. Wanna know why?
Go ahead, run through the list of possible answers in your mind.
Is it because everyone is stupid?
Is it because everyone is selfish? (maybe)
Is it because the world is ridiculous and nobody knows how to cope? (also maybe)
One answer is for certain: we have forgotten how to listen.
Next time you get into an argument with somebody, shut up for a little bit, and listen.
Don’t just listen with your ears. Listen with your mind, your heart. Try to understand where they’re coming from and look at them through a lens of compassion. Learn a little bit. You can’t ever learn enough.
Slight Heights 