Meanwhile...
Most of the time life just sort of happens to me, or at least it feels like it does. Do you ever get that? I mean to say, here you are, you’ve shown up to life carrying the personality traits that previous events have bestowed on you, with the knowledge congruent to your back story, with the people you have collected along the way beside you… and when a plot point arrives all those things sort of coalesce and the life story just sort of happens. It is sound and logical and even peaceful, because it feels like it couldn’t have happened any other way. Even when it disintegrates into an utter shit storm, there is a sense of calm reservedness, because it is a sensical shit storm, a cosmic joke sort of shit storm… just another movie from the dark-humor genre.
I don’t know if that makes sense, but that is how I live my life a lot of the time. I just sort of show up to it, like a passive participant. Lately, though… I don’t know. I sort of feel like I am at a crossroads of sorts. One of those points where, if this were a sci-fi novel, an entire new universe could spin off in each different direction, and multiple versions of my life could go on from those points with completely different results. This moment, right now, is not fixed and I have to choose which direction the story is going to go. I have to participate actively in the writing of my life story. And…. And maybe I’m afraid to. Maybe that is what it ultimately boils down to. I blame a lot of it on laziness, which is certainly a factor, don’t get me wrong. You don’t expend much energy when you just sit back and wait for life to happen, but then you don’t take a lot of unnecessary risks either.
Sometimes, though, a situation comes along and a person has to choose, even inaction is a choice with consequences. Should I stay or should I go? And how much time should I spend wondering about the me in the alternate universe who made the opposite choice? Is she happier than I am?
I can’t help thinking that we all build these lives for ourselves, no matter how passively we allow the choices to be made. And if we build these lives, maybe we have to take responsibility for building our own happiness as well. What if I am coming to these conclusion from the entirely wrong mindset? It could be that I am not just arriving at a crossroads, but maybe I have just woken up to the fact that I have been wandering through a maze, walking in circles, always turning left, because it doesn’t require any forethought, but it doesn’t really take me anywhere. Maybe my life isn’t stagnating, maybe it’s stagnate. Maybe it has been for a long, long time.
So I do what? Stir the shit? Make big life changes to prove I’m alive? Make small life changes to prove that I’m sentient? Stand up to the things in my life that make me miserable to prove I have self-esteem? Or just continue to let circumstance steam roll me because I can’t think of a polite way to ask it to stop?
I know everyone feels like this sometimes, or I guess I assume they do, but it doesn’t make me feel less hopeless or more confident… unfortunately. It doesn’t tell me whether I should go to the doctor and get an X-ray, if I should weed through the bitter vines in my interpersonal relationships, if I should put in two weeks notice… or if I should just ignore the pain and hope most of it is in my head.
Or maybe it is all about perspective, maybe a positive attitude would work wonders for my bone as well as my spirit… maybe neither one is entirely broken.
I don’t know if that makes sense, but that is how I live my life a lot of the time. I just sort of show up to it, like a passive participant. Lately, though… I don’t know. I sort of feel like I am at a crossroads of sorts. One of those points where, if this were a sci-fi novel, an entire new universe could spin off in each different direction, and multiple versions of my life could go on from those points with completely different results. This moment, right now, is not fixed and I have to choose which direction the story is going to go. I have to participate actively in the writing of my life story. And…. And maybe I’m afraid to. Maybe that is what it ultimately boils down to. I blame a lot of it on laziness, which is certainly a factor, don’t get me wrong. You don’t expend much energy when you just sit back and wait for life to happen, but then you don’t take a lot of unnecessary risks either.
Sometimes, though, a situation comes along and a person has to choose, even inaction is a choice with consequences. Should I stay or should I go? And how much time should I spend wondering about the me in the alternate universe who made the opposite choice? Is she happier than I am?
I can’t help thinking that we all build these lives for ourselves, no matter how passively we allow the choices to be made. And if we build these lives, maybe we have to take responsibility for building our own happiness as well. What if I am coming to these conclusion from the entirely wrong mindset? It could be that I am not just arriving at a crossroads, but maybe I have just woken up to the fact that I have been wandering through a maze, walking in circles, always turning left, because it doesn’t require any forethought, but it doesn’t really take me anywhere. Maybe my life isn’t stagnating, maybe it’s stagnate. Maybe it has been for a long, long time.
So I do what? Stir the shit? Make big life changes to prove I’m alive? Make small life changes to prove that I’m sentient? Stand up to the things in my life that make me miserable to prove I have self-esteem? Or just continue to let circumstance steam roll me because I can’t think of a polite way to ask it to stop?
I know everyone feels like this sometimes, or I guess I assume they do, but it doesn’t make me feel less hopeless or more confident… unfortunately. It doesn’t tell me whether I should go to the doctor and get an X-ray, if I should weed through the bitter vines in my interpersonal relationships, if I should put in two weeks notice… or if I should just ignore the pain and hope most of it is in my head.
Or maybe it is all about perspective, maybe a positive attitude would work wonders for my bone as well as my spirit… maybe neither one is entirely broken.