Throughout all of my life it has been communicated to me in almost every form possible that life is all about survival, as opposed to actually living and expressing myself. However for this blog I’m looking at a particular period in my life that kind of finalized/engrained fully this mentality within me.
When I was about 22 years old, after numerous failed attempts at having successful jobs or academic pursuits, along with several failed relationships that has been central to my life, I was given an opportunity by a family member to work a job. Because the family member had assisted me, and I was comfortable, treated with some respect and paid a semi-decent wage, I really took well to the job and for the first time, found some peace in the workplace. It was the only anchor of stability in my life at this time, and this lasted maybe for about 8 months. Then the business was sold and I lost my job.
I was assisted by the family member who did provide me with cheap living accommodations, but given that the job was the only point of stability I had, my life took a real turn for the worse. I had no job, no money, no future prospects, I was addicted to drugs, and still had all kinds of messed up relationships in my life. Hell, the place I had moved to was a poor neighborhood so I even began to identify with this as being my reality. I have not taken into full consideration the impact that this experience had on me in terms of how I had come to accept that “well, this is it, you’re an adult now, welcome to life, it is going to be really shitty” – this was now how I based myself and projected my future, based on an idea of life where failure and hardship is the way it was going to be. That resources were always scarce, so I should obsess over money. That life was shit, so I should just escape and do lots of drugs. That every relationship I had ever known was fucked therefore ‘fuck-relationships!’ That I had no skills or education therefore I am useless and have no opportunities. That I could never expect that anyone would ever come and assist and support me because if that was the way the world worked, I wouldn’t have been in the mess I was in.
Basically, I got a tiny glimpse at what most people in this world are currently enduring at this very moment you read this. It was fortunate in that it was a real experience that allowed forced me to consider others and reality more, and completely destroyed any disillusions of positivity that I could spin on my reality. However, again, the problem is that I have not up until this point faced the full impact that this experience had on me, and is still currently having on me today.
The fact is that while I may have been ‘hard done by’ as I may want to believe I have – so too did I do harm to others in my life and so too did I not stand up for myself/life when harm was being done. I accepted it. I copied it. I internalized it. I became it.
What I am now currently busy with is stopping the tendencies/habits/patterns that I had developed from y life experience – to isolate myself, to want to run away, to want to delude myself with happy feelings or drugs, to hate everything and everyone, to blame everything and everyone, to feel like I have no value, to feel like I’m worthless, to feel like I’m inferior to everyone, to feel that I must fear others, to fear that I must be spiteful towards others, to think that everyone is against me and everyone is my enemy.
I will be continuing with self forgiveness statements in the next blog.
An Alpha Male's Journey To Life 