Everyone goes through it at some point. That sinking feeling where you realize the situation has gone to shit. Now it could be something small, or it could be huge. It just depends what you value and what you see as important. To some, work would be a big deal if it went south, to others it might be your relationships with friends, family, or your significant other. It could even be your self perception, or health, whatever. Everyone goes through some form of this at some point in their life. Money doesn’t save you from it, it may help certain parts but not all of them. Your color doesn’t save you from it. Your gender doesn’t save you. We as humans are all susceptible to it.

For me, I’ve dealt with a lot of things. Not like some folks, but for my little brain to process it’s been overwhelming at times. Like I said I know everyone has dealt with it, but it doesn’t make anyone’s problems less important to them. For me it’s always osculated between relationships/friendships and my self image. Those are the hardest things for me to manage.

When a friend doesn’t want to be your friend, or when you look at yourself and don’t know who you’re looking at.. those are the two hardest things for me. Work is work, and I love it, but I always seem to bounce back when things go sideways, money is money, it’ll get sorted eventually as long as I’m not stupid, but trust.. trust and friendship once lost… phew. That’s no easy thing to rebuild. Sometimes it’s not even that. Sometimes you have no idea what happened(which in my opinion is way worse than actually messing up the friendship) It’s a hard thing for me to wrap my mind around, waking up and thinking “I don’t really feel like being friends with this person anymore”.

Self image on the other hand is completely in your control(most of the time). You control what you eat, you control what you do, what you say, how you take care of yourself. So how is it that we let ourselves go so far from what we think we should be? For me I’m still stuck thinking I should be this awesome guy that can run forever and never get tired, but I’m not. I’m almost 27 completely out of shape and overweight. I can’t blame anyone but me for my issues. Other folks I know have had medical problems pop up time and time again inhibiting their potential, but me? I without a shadow of a doubt could have maintained. I didn’t.

So here we are, now that I find myself or we find ourselves in these positions, what do you do? What do I do? What SHOULD we all do? I wish I knew the answer to this because I’d be a freaking millionaire. I do know a few things that I thought would work but ended up being rather detrimental to me.

First things first, distinguishing between controllable and non controllable. I gained 40lbs for me that’s a controllable. I need to work out and eat better. My friend doesn’t want to be my friend. Why? because I said stupid stuff and was rude. Ok that’s a controllable. Another friend doesn’t want to be my friend. Why? I have no idea. That is not a controllable.

Step one done.

Next thing. DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP. Yeah we all make mistakes. We let ourselves go, we screw up and say the wrong things. whatever. You’re not special when it comes to that. You’re not above mistakes. Don’t take this as it’s ok to be an ass to everyone and not care, but it’s part of growing up(which you never stop doing). You keep learning up until the moment you die. Life is a process of which no one is the master. Learn from it. Use these things to help understand why. Why did I gain a bunch of weight? Well I kept my eating habits, but I stopped working out. I became sedentary. Simple right? but that’s not why. I was unhappy with a lot of things and I lashed out in a childish way by abandoning the thing that kept me in the shape I wanted to be. I ate to feel happy but it made me fat and unhappy. Which meant I wanted to eat more. Fat Bastard summed it up rather well. “I eat because I’m unhappy, I’m unhappy because I eat” I don’t know if that was a quote from something else, but it truly is as he put a vicious cycle.

The friend part is tricky because that deals with other folks and things beyond which I’m willing to go into at this point. However, recognizing there is an issue is the first step. It’s kind of like AA I think? or that saying if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Well it’s broken, so fix it. You’ve(I’ve) recognized the problem. Now take steps. small steps but take them. You will fail again, I will fail again. It’s not going to be easy. The worst thing, the only thing I will say DO NOT DO, is give up. “Never give up. Never surrender”(galaxy quest was an amazing movie).

That’s as far as I’ve gotten. Everything else to me is a mystery. There are ideas I have for improving how you value yourself, but that’s for another blog.

This has taken a bit of a turn. I hadn’t expected that.

That’s one of my little dilemmas.

That being said. You’re not alone in whatever struggle besets you. When the world feels like it’s caving in and you just don’t know what to do reach out. Sometimes it feels like there’s no one there, but there are. There are hotlines(as lame as it sounds those people care about you, they really do). Special people who care about strangers. More often than not you have a friend, a family member or someone who cares.

In the end what do I do? I write. I talk. I record. I used to run. Maybe I should start doing that again?

What do you do?