Not Broken

When you see someone smiling, getting on with their job or whatever, seeming content, how do you really know that they're okay? Do you take on face value how that person comes across? Do you find yourself wondering how they do it? How they maintain their repose even in really stressful situations? Do you maybe even feel a hint of envy on some level that they have it so apparently easy, or that they handle life so well?

Well, I have to tell you, don't do that..

Nobody has it easy.

Take the most relaxed, calm, agreeable person you know. You don't know what depths of hell they might have plumbed before they arrived at a point where they could be at peace with life. How about the strong, dependable, kind and funny person you love to be around? Hard to imagine them at the bottom of a bottle and wasted on drugs, a hopeless, selfish, destructive addict, for years on end. What of the single mother you know and see as a perfect role model, dedicated, selfless and nurturing with every ounce of her being - worlds apart from the suffocation of the abusive, oppressive, authoritarian parents she had to endure.

Think about everyone you know, everyone you meet and everyone you know of. How many of them would you say are really okay? What exactly is okay anyway? Normal? Then, what exactly is normal?

Many people equate normality with being happy. I hate to break it to them, but happy is not normal. It's simply not a normal human state of mind. Happiness comes in fits and starts. It's a nice meal, a crafty smoke, an orgasm. Happy is a fleeting and temporary emotion, and those who think they can live life in a perpetual state of happiness are deluded. Worse, those who constantly pursue this state of mind are heavily prone to falling. That path is littered with the unavoidable traps of habituation, addiction and obsession, and its destination is the mirror opposite of anything good.

We've been brainwashed by a mono-culture, born of a profoundly sick society, that holds that anyone who isn't 'happy' has something fundamentally wrong with them. They must not be making enough 'effort' in life, not putting in enough 'work'. They do not fit into the illusion of a perfect life that society has deemed acceptable, an illusion manufactured with the sole purpose of making people feel inadequate in the first place purely so that they'll buy stuff they don't really need to try to feel better.

I'm here to tell you it is okay to be not okay. It's not only okay, it's far healthier than pretending otherwise. Everyone has their cross to bare. The trick is to do it with some grace and style, if you can, and if you can't, seek help, find support and learn how to change the way you are thinking about all of this. It's a long and difficult road, but the journey teaches you more than you ever thought possible.

Unusually for this blog, I decided to end on a poem which I wrote the other week, if you'll indulge me..

How do you fix what is not broken?
When you think your latest foolish notion
Is some groundbreaking observation
As it provides you with false elation,
Carries you along on its high ride,
Until you hit the flip side,
Surfing sudden strong waves incoming on the tide
To arrive at the dark island where you hide.

Temporary solace can be found there,
You can wallow in apathy, pretend you don't care,
But sooner or later reality will start biting.
You either collapse or come out fighting,
The fight is like trying to reach the ceiling
Of the fleeting feelings that gave you meaning,
Whilst reeling from an invisible attack
By the blackness of thoughts held back.

"If it ain't broke don't try to fix it" they say,
But you found the exception to the rule today,
By stumbling through darkness you found a light,
Extracting insight from the forces that blight.
The road less travelled reveals so much more,
It shows you what the pain is really all for,
It's worth years of tears for the wisdom you get
And the peace of a life free from fear of regret.

Copyright ©2018 Richard C. Greenlow. All rights reserved.