Hey guys,
Today isn’t really fueled with the same passion as I have had lately. I think I am starting to settle into my new reality. That every day is the same. Thanks for that Trent Reznor. Nothing to be sad or mad or really passionate about. Today is when my old friend apathy rejoins me in my continued path of solitude. I am going through the motions of reading through dating profiles, but I don’t think I really want to find anyone. That’s the thing about regret. You can only see the things we regret in a rear-view mirror. I don’t want to be laying on my death bed, thinking, man, I wish I had tried just a little bit more. Here is me. Trying. But since we are talking about regret, why not?
I actually came across some interesting motivational
tid-bits on the gram about regret. Prior to the breakup, which gives me a clarity
outside of my grief. I learned that regret is not supposed to make you feel
bad. It supposed to remind us of mistakes so that we can work on being the best
version of ourselves. It’s a reminder of a time when we were not that version.
Some of us have more regret than others. My take on the subject has always been
that regret is a terrible concept, because it means that if you had a time
machine, you would go back and change that moment. You know what you would
really being changing? I don’t know. And neither do you. We are who we are
today because of the choices we already made. Wanting to change that is a type
of anti-self-love, is it not? Sure, I wish I was richer, thinner, smarter. However,
I am only as much effort as I have applied. Anything that comes to you without
the hard work doesn’t teach you to appreciate it. Then if that thing leaves
you, like money, you’re stuck. It has always been freely given and now you don’t
know how to fish. It’s a slippery slope and as is with everything, shit rolls downhill.
To sum up, regret doesn’t have to be this terrible concept
at all. If we aren’t learning, are we even living? I see things popping up all
the time on my gram about how failure only happens when you give up. We all
mess up. It’s called being human. But to the people who give up after messing
up, you failed. Success is paved with the road of our mishaps and the end is
only reached by those who keep moving forward. All of these concepts make so
much sense on paper. And in reality, emotions set in and it’s hard to see with
any clarity. I am often controlled entirely by my emotions. When I think back
on a moment, I sometimes cannot even tell you why certain words were said, or
actions made. I can only tell you that I was emotionally blind in that moment.
It's not really something than can be explained. But we have all felt it. Waking
up on the wrong side of the bed is how most people explain away temporary
insanity. I often joke about Women Hysteria. The cure for which is just fucking
brilliant. Google it. At the end of the day, most people are controlled by the
temporary inconveniences of emotions.
That being said, there is a way through this wilderness.
Breathe. Just count to some random number and breathe. And maybe the fog will
clear enough for you to be the version of you not being controlled by your emotions.
It’s funny how many things can simply be solved by breathing. Try it right now.
Just a few breathes. Count them as they go in and then count again as they
exit. Do you feel better? I know I do.
On the topic of emotions, I am very excited to see a new installment of the “Inside Out” franchise. I waited a while to see this movie when it first came out. Not because it is intended for children- we are all children at heart. But because I knew this topic was going to be hard for me to watch. It’s no secret that I have always felt like a slave to my emotions. My biggest dictator being sadness. It was the movie that gave me new perspective. Before I saw it, I always thought I was a bad person for being sad all the time. That the people around me were the good type of people because they could smile and function. Then I saw that stupid blue girl with her glasses (looking kind of like me) thinking she ruined everything, only to discover that sadness is just as important as joy. Even if you don’t feel like that, we need to accept that these emotions are going to happen and sometimes without warning. You cannot control everything that happens to you. Honestly, you also cannot always control the way you feel about things. But you can ALWAYS control how you react on the outside. If that means seclusion so that you don’t hurt the people in your life, do that. Call out of work. We live in a new day and age where people need mental health days. USE THEM. This is inside me yelling at outside me, because I'm a firm believer in, "Give me work or give me death!! Death is real possibility though when you put YOU on the back burner. Think about it. Would you treat friend the way you treat yourself? I hope I wouldn't.
Signing off today, glad that I am finally starting to get back to normal. Post break-up. Life moves on whether we do or not. I don’t want to be left behind. I’ll keep learning - improving my self-awareness/emotional intelligence and maybe sharing some of that with you, along the way. Remember, Just Breathe.
-Jen
