When I despair, when I resent myself for what I am, or someone else for what they are, or where I am and what I do, or where I was and what I did, for what it is or for what it was, I am duped: I am falling for a trick, a lie.
My past, the decisions I made and the consquences of them, is a matter of indifference. It is that, or it is a matter for reflection: specifically, how can it help me enjoy today, or live better today, —there’s little difference between the two, or there should be at least—, where I am and what I’m doing right now?
Every moment, at all times, I have the capacity to be well. If not physically, morally at least; all it takes is honesty, or lucidity. What depends on me? What’s in my control? and what is not?
It’s true that, if I’m overwhelmed by stress or anxiety, it’s less likely that I’ll be capable of giving myself an honest account of what matters (what depends on me and what doesn’t, what I owe and what I don’t, etc.), of recentering, or retaking myself, of finding in myself a sort of moral balance, a sense of myself as I am (without hate or fear; simply, honestly; in good faith). Sometimes it’s just a matter of patience or endurance, of acquiescence: accepting the discomfort or pain or awkwardness of where you are and supporting it, knowing it will pass soon enough.
Nothing is ever pure in us: happiness, contentment, satisfaction; unhappiness, discontent, dissatisfaction; contradictions are always there, contradictory feelings. We are happy but a little sad too; sad but not completely sad; disappointed but a little hopeful, at least in a vague and hard-to-explain way. It’s always like that.
We can’t control the result of our actions; all we have is our will. Why do something if it may fail? (Or be awkward, imperfect?) Because action is better than doing nothing (it certainly, if only in the end, feels better), and waiting for perfection or conditions that don’t exist and will never come is a perfect waste; we are born to act.
I write and I see that what I write is not perfect. I see that, when I think of my favorite writers and what they write, my own just doesn’t compare. But this is not good: my own has the advantage, and it’s a serious one, of being my own and no one else’s, of giving me a satisfaction (or, of course, a dissatisfaction) that no other writing can give me. It depends on me; it’s born of my unique experience, of my own mind (and body, and heart).
You see sometimes that, when you’re starting to suffer in yourself, when you realize that you’re falling in a certain direction in yourself, when your worst thoughts become loud and irresistible: sometimes you see that you have a choice: that, if you want (and you really want), you can resist them; you can conquer them, you can refuse them, you can deny them, you can say no. They may stick around and make noise, but if you decide that they are not yours, not your own, not your thoughts, but traitors, liars, cowards, cheats, it is only a matter of time and patience before they leave.
Hearing the bad thoughts blabbing on in your head and choosing to go on anyway, better than them, not them, stronger. Choosing to act on the good ones, even if they’re quiet, even if they’re apparently far, choosing to remember in act, trying to see, however imperfect, one effort after another.
Like that.
Gray Haskins 