Getting better one day at a time
Running Away, Running Towards Since middle school, I’ve struggled on and off with intrusive and depressive thoughts. Eventually, after some indeterminate period of time they would always go away. I would feel unburdened and like myself again. But at the back of my mind there …
is to slowly chip away at it. Expect failure but keep going anyway. Like with exercise, to get good at anything, you have to put in your reps. You have to push until you think you will give up and then give that extra 5%, …
For a while now I have been thinking about the dynamics of today’s society and their impacts on social relationships. We move away from home at the age of eighteen, often far away. We strive to obtain demanding jobs and work long hours to impress our bosses. We have so little time to socialize that many of us now meet our partners or spouses on dating apps and websites.
We are increasingly socially isolated. And this in turn puts a lopsided weight on the value of romantic partnerships. Since, without parents, siblings, and close friends nearby, the love relationship is the central emotional relationship in most people’s lives.
I feel that there are two solutions to this imbalance. One is to recognize the importance of emotional dependence on family and friends and to prioritize this over career or financial success. The other is to acknowledge the extreme significance of choosing and cultivating a healthy and strong relationship with a partner.
So, to tackle this issue, I have begun to pour consistent time and energy into strengthening the relationships with the people I care about, especially my family. That’s why I didn’t post anything last Friday. I was in West Virginia with all of my cousins. It’s also something I want to keep in mind when applying for jobs after college. I would like to be close enough to have dinner with my parents or siblings on some weekends.
I also listened to the audiobook Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson, which is about couple therapy and building strong emotional bonds with a romantic partner. This may seem a little strange, since I’m only 21 and not even in a relationship or anything. But, I also think it’s a little strange that so many people just dive head-first into what could be the most important relationship throughout the rest of their lives and blindly try to figure it out as they go along. The book also offered some really interesting insights on the psychology of emotional attachment in adults and the positive effects of supportive and open love pairs. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the psychology of love and relationships.
To wrap this up, I guess I would just like to acknowledge the significance that all of my close friends have in my life. I don’t know where life will take us after college, but I will do my best to continue to support you through it all.
It seems like this is the month of admitting that I’m wrong about everything. There is something beautiful about being wrong and expanding your mind to possibilities you had previously not been able to imagine. But, enough waxing poetic, what was I wrong about this …
On June 24th before I launched this blog, when I was still having some doubts about even creating it or putting it out into the world in the first place I wrote this message to myself as motivation: I will not quit on myself. I …
When I first decided to create this blog, I drafted up a short description of what I wanted it to be about. You can find that description in the sidebar on the home page. The first line in this description was as follows:
Humans have been around for around 200,000 years and still no one has figured out this thing called life.
I think I was fundamentally wrong in this assertion. And I think it’s important that I break down why I believe I was wrong.
The idea that no one has figured out how to live and furthermore that there is no correct way to live is a commonly accepted idea in our society. It goes hand-in-hand with the idea that there is no inherent meaning to life but rather that we can all invent our own.
However, after beginning to read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning, I’ve begun to change my mind. I feel that there are in fact timeless and foundational governing principles that help one to lead a successful and happy life and some people have discovered and followed these principles.
The first of these principles and most impactful for me is to take personal responsibility. To stare yourself straight in the mirror and acknowledge the ugly truths. I looked at myself and said: “You’re fat, you’re lazy, you’re uninformed about a lot of things, you’re ungrateful to your family, you are unhappy because of what you have and have not done to put yourself in this situation.” Once these truths had been stated and accepted, I could go about slowly changing them.
Perhaps this is unpopular because it is uncomfortable and difficult. Perhaps the rigidity of guiding principles seems constraining and counter to the idea of individualism. But the truth is you cannot be an individual if you do not take individual responsibility. You cannot take on the world if you can’t even face yourself.
I haven’t fully grappled with these ideas yet nor have I finished the three books mentioned above but I will update my thoughts as time progresses.
It’s been a while, but I’m finally updating my food log. I’m thinking about posting these once a month at most from now on. I’ve also been experimenting with taking a multivitamin and eating an even cleaner diet so we’ll see how that goes. Now, …
About a year ago I started reading the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I never finished the book, but one concept from it that has stuck with me since is the concept of play. In the first couple of chapters the …