Hey, folks.
I’m tired, in pretty much every way but physically.
It’s been one of the lowest days of my life, as far as seeing the point of life and having a desire or reason to keep going on with it.
It’s been a fairly steady descent to this point, like the downward trend of the stock market, and it’s been going on for… a while now.
As I was driving out to the first car of the day, it was just like… why? what am I doing? there’s no point to this. It was a sort of agony just to answer the phone today.
I don’t want to do this anymore.
Honestly, I’ve been thinking more about just… signing off… to put it gently. Tried once when I was a teenager. Didn’t realize a gazillion ibuprofen, or whatever the pills were, wouldn’t do the trick. Don’t recall having any reaction at all to the massive overdose.
But at this point, I think I’ve realized that I’m broken beyond repair. Neither I nor anyone else can fix me. I’m trapped in a hell I can’t get out of. And the pain is to the point that… signing off… is becoming more and more appealing.
I’ve pretty much lost the will to keep trying. There’s no joy. No faith. No energy. No hunger. No drive. No passion. No… point.
And that’s just how the day started. It only got worse from there. I shared my loss of faith with someone I’ve known my entire life who responded with assumptions and judgments about how I must not have been living right if I lost my faith. Most people are very supportive and kind. It’s really only been just the one today who hasn’t. But even just one stings a bit–especially today when I’m already so far down.
Then I realized someone I dearly love who can’t really be connected to me because it causes problems in her marriage (which i totally get) blocked me from reading her blog, and that added more pain.
I can probably guess why she’d do that. Still, it’s hard to not be able to be connected even in peripheral ways to the person I felt more connected to than anyone in the world. But I understand. I hope. I temporarily did a similar thing not too long ago, because I thought it might help her in her situation and also because I was trying to find some way out of the prison hell I’m in.
But that just set off a chain of events that’s made it even worse for me, even harder.
And then I saw a post today on a different platform that… broke me even more, just ripped what little left I had of my heart out. So I don’t know what’s worse, being peripherally connected or completely shutout. Both are a special hell seemingly perfectly designed for me.
Life.
Not what I thought it would be.
Not what I hoped it would be.
Worse than I ever feared it could be. Just blindsided, honestly. Never thought life could be so awful.
Tired of it. So so tired of it. Don’t want it anymore. Hurts more than I can express…
Gotta say goodnight. I put off doing sales tax submission stuff until the last day, and I have just over an hour to get it turned in before it’s late.
I might not write again. If I don’t, thanks, for having been there with me.
Lift the World 
I’m sorry that happened today. I love you.
I love you, too, Stephen. You are important in my life.
Dear Stephen,
This is going to be imperfectly expressed and edited because I would rather try to share love with you now than spend 4 hours a night for the next several nights trying to say everything just right and then never sending it because the time has passed and I still haven’t edited it to my satisfaction, and life keeps interrupting my efforts. It is going to be redundant in places. Some of it might not apply. Some of it might unintentionally hurt your feelings or ignite your anger. Please recognize that I write it with love, and a hope and wish to do something to alleviate your suffering, and this is the best that I can manage right now. Please read assuming positive intent and lack of judgment on my part. I am in the trenches too, trying to find my own way, as are we all. It is the human condition. And, shockingly, we are just as human as everyone else.
Stephen, I hope that, despite your grief, you will accept comfort from those who love you. It is a choice only you can make. You can refuse to be comforted or you can accept comfort. I hope you will accept it. So many of us love you and want your well-being with all our hearts.
Remember your initial premise: “lift the world.” When you say “what’s the point” you have let yourself drown in sorrow. Your sorrow makes you forget that the individuals you have helped and will help are worth it. Remember your original premise. I know you believe in it. Right now, you are struggling with painful sorrows and griefs that are magnified to extreme by our DNA. I am only going to talk about the DNA part. The rest I think only heals with time.
Much as one might not want to acknowledge DNA plays a part, it can actually be helpful, hopeful, and productive. I’m not pointing fingers here. Dad did not ask for his genetics and predispositions. Nor mom hers. It’s what they got. I wrestle with tendencies borne of their genetics, too. Most or all of us offspring do in one way or another. Just as both mom and dad have many incredible gifts (as do we) those gifts are balanced and sometimes imbalanced by significant short-comings – as are ours. These short-comings do not define you or them or me – rather, their/our pure desires, their/our efforts to do good things and be good things define them, you, me – all of us. While the shortcomings do not define you/us, identifying them can lead to understanding of them, which can lead to tools to manage them, which can lead to much greater happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life… It can lead you to being peaceful in your own skin, which can attract the right partner to you in time. I hope so much that you will find that peace and comfort in your own skin. I hope so much you can find that partner. I hope you can recognize that “special hells designed for us” happen to every individual. Life doesn’t have it out for you and you specifically. We all come to our hells. And we can come through them. Or we can learn to find peace and happiness despite them. While it might feel like the sharpest of pains, being shut out from the other individual’s blog might be exactly what you need to start the healing process. There is no healing while you’re still embroiled in what has passed. But you have to be willing to be healed. I know how easy it can be to wallow, to not let go – it is in our DNA not to let go, not to quit, not to give up… even when failing to let go actually hurts us more.
A mundane example of not quitting to the point of hurting ourselves: I didn’t puke for probably 15 years because I remembered hating the feeling of vomiting. When a time came that there was no way for me to hold it back, I realized how much unnecessary misery I had put myself through by being unwilling to let go and let my body get rid of what was bothering it so it could have relief. Maybe that’s a metaphor for this trial you have re-hashed over the last few years.
From what I see, via dad’s genetics, you wrestle with seeing the world, yourself, your faith, and your life in concrete black and white. You have made a lot of deliberate progress on this in some contexts through the course of your blog. I believe it will help you find happiness as you apply that growth in other contexts. Like dad, you wrestle with how to balance your great visions of what can be with realistic or practical approaches. For example, if you can’t lift the world in the big way you envision, then you seem to feel that everything else is a waste. If you can’t do it with the spouse you felt you were supposed to be with, then it’s not worth doing. The grief from the latter is real. It is a similar circumstance to those who have been widowed – having your dream and understanding of your life shattered and having to reframe it in a new shape from the million pieces left on the ground, or from entirely new pieces. And you might say, “but my case is different because….” and “my case is different because…” “and my hell is more hellish because.” and you’ll be right and wrong. Right because it’s true, your case is different because… and wrong because everyone’s hell is profoundly hellish to the extent they allow it to be, and wrong because the analogy can still be valid and helpful despite material differences. Nuanced thinking rather than black and white. Examples of black and white: if you can’t lift the world via your own vision of your non-profit, then everything else is a waste. Yet, if lifting the world only has meaning if you can do it big or if you can do it with a spouse, is it really the world you were thinking about lifting? I believe it is the world you are thinking about, and perhaps that thinking is influenced by your human tendencies. That’s true of all of us: we have perfect desires for goodness and we enact them in our imperfect human ways.
From both mom’s and dad’s sides some of us wrestle with a tendency towards both large ego and fantastically fragile self-esteem. We feel that our greater intelligence or knowledge is greater in all regards and that is not so. The hand cannot say to the foot “I have no need of thee.” At the same time, there is a tendency to feel that if we’re not out there doing more and better than everyone else then we’re failures. Or if we’re not achieving everything we envision then we are failures. What does that say about our actual motivations? Our true perceptions of others? Our actual peace and recognition of our own immeasurable immutable worth that is 100% independent of our accomplishments? Our peace with our own short-comings? Immutable worth and human short-comings make an unbreakable bond between us and the rest of humanity.
Because of the black and white thinking, and/or the genetic predisposition to feel if you can’t do it as envisioned it’s worthless, and the predisposition to believe nobody else’s way is good enough so we won’t do it their way, either… I think because of all these things you can’t acknowledge or value how you already lift the world. You lift it right and left with the family on the hill, your clients on the job and doubtless many others. It’s not good enough for you. It’s not big enough for you. Is it about them or you? Does the need they had that you alleviated not count? Do the ways they reach out to alleviate your needs not count? Or is it just part of being human that we need to learn to aim towards our dreams without the dreams making our current reality feel 3rd class? I hope you recognize the worth of the people you currently help! I hope you can feel that lifting doesn’t come from above but from next to. That we should welcome being lifted as much as we seek to lift. I hope you will recognize ways others are trying to share love and lifting of you, and have joy in that. I hope you will feel and rejoice in the fact that lifting the world ultimately happens one individual at a time. I hope you recognize the incomprehensible value of lifting or affirming or standing with even one soul in one moment of need! And I hope you will allow them to do it for you! It does not mean you need to put your dreams of lifting “big” aside. Aim for them! But in the mean time, may you truly feel that “lifting where you stand” has equal or greater value than lifting across the world. If we all lift where we stand, our mutual concerted lifting will extend around the world!! And lifting is contagious! And the joy it can bring is contagious! So. Love your dreams! But don’t let them blind you to the tremendous value in the people you serve right now. “Mundane” is not equivalent to “of little value.”
From DNA, you, I and many of our siblings also wrestle with emotion spiraling and emotion extremes, and a tendency to let strong emotion blind us to the wisdom of our minds and of broader perspectives. Some of us might have the converse, we let our strong thinking blind us to the emotional needs of others. But anyway, for us on the more “feely” side, if we feel something, we feel it times 10, whether it’s anger, love, betrayal, grief, happiness, hopelessness, depression… Our DNA gives a tendency to take set-backs large and small personally – to have extreme responses to fundamentally unimportant things, and to think if we experience continual challenges then joy is not possible. I’m not sure if the former is related to our DNA-borne fear of failure, our spectrum-y difficulty in dealing with something happening outside of how we pictured it or… just struggling with being human… The latter is an art and balance that it might take our whole lives of educating our responses to feel peace in set-backs, joy despite challenges, and happiness despite grief. We *can* achieve it. And lifting the world, as you have discovered, is one of the keys.
Other DNA issues: there is a genetic tendency in you towards compulsive/impulsive issues and obsessive issues. But these tendencies don’t define you. They are not you. They are things you have been given as the catalyst for growth, humility, compassion, and strength.
Emotionally and behaviorally, we offspring of our parents have to learn to identify what is happening when our less healthy tendencies start to take over. We can seek tools to respond and plan ahead how we will respond – just as you have done in some contexts through the course of your blog. Like other skills, it takes practice! I need to seek more tools myself and practice more myself. It is worth the effort! It is true that it can be difficult to find the right tools. But there are many great thinkers in the world who see clearly in the areas we have blind spots, and their sight can bless us! It is worth seeking their insight!
From DNA from both sides, we have a tendency to overdo. So, you have a tendency to work yourself into the ground and then wonder why you collapsed. I, too. I did that for 10 years until I broke down and subsequently didn’t have the resilience to do more than the minimum for a few years. You made some great progress on that tendency for a while. You still use some of those skills to prevent overdoing. Learning to find the balance between self-care so we can be balanced and present in every moment independent of our circumstances – and the balance of reaching out to lift and connect with others – is a skill. It is also worth the practice. And the practice is the point. Developing ourselves is a wonderful meaningful point that actually lifts others also! The more we develop ourselves, the more we lift others and walk with them in their own self-development! And vice versa!
If we are the biggest focus of our own lives, we might wonder what is the point. I think about that as I put all this effort into fence building and house building on land that feels like an incredible haven, but will it feel like a haven when I take my last breath? Will the fences and the house feel important then? Will I have looked towards my own false ideas of happiness more than I looked towards lifting and connecting with my fellow humans? What is the point of all my labor? Especially if something comes along and dashes it all as life seems to do to many people and ultimately, in a way, to all people? At that time of my last breath, I have a suspicion that what will matter most is not the self-fulfillment, but the self-development, the lifting the world by increasing the love in the world – increasing the love in my interactions, in my responses to events, people, and things, increasing the love towards myself in my bumbling human progress. As you have already seen and chosen, lifting the world will have been the whole point. Learning to love. Learning to let our hells enlarge rather than obliterate us. Learning to see ourselves in others and them in us.
Stephen, may you feel and find that point again. May you find tools to identify and respond to the tendencies that magnify and multiply your hurts. And when you do, please share them, because many others will be blessed by those tools, too. Including myself! That will be part of your lifting the world.
May you be at peace with yourself. May you find a way through your grief and anger. May you be willing to receive love from us. May you allow developing yourself and lifting the world in small ways or great to heal you.
I love you, Stephen, with all my heart.
As a note: while I focused on difficult genetic tendencies in my previous writing, I want to underscore the great love I have for both dad and mom, for always doing their very best with what they have. I love them and admire them both – for their unfailing perseverance in all their endeavors, including their endeavors to become the best versions of themselves. I love them with all my heart for their pure and strong desires to do good and to be good, and for all the good they have done in their efforts. I love them and revere them for these things. Genetic short-comings are part of being human and they do not define them or us. I feel grateful, humbled, and blessed to try to follow their examples.
Another P.S.
Better expressed: I love dad and mom for their strengths and their hearts, and I have great compassion for their limitations. I hope that is what people will give me and you: love for our strengths, compassion for our limitations. I hope eventually to be able to offer that to every human being I meet.
And another P.S.
After a re-read – a few of the things I’d edit: Many if not all of our genetic tendencies that function as areas for growth are actually also our most awesome strengths. These strengths result in areas for growth only because they are so strong they put us out of balance. So maybe I should say they are areas for judicious pruning – like a beautiful Japanese maple tree or a vigorous apple tree – rather than areas for growth. 🙂
I love you, Stephen… I hope today you are able to find and focus on some things that bring you solace. I know well how it feels when the joy I usually take in the beauty of nature turns to ashes because of grief or anger at injustice. May some of the ashes blow away today and some of the solace and joy return.
Sending so much love your way…
Oh, Heather, how beautifully expressed! I love you!
Tish! I love you back!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Giant hugs!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Love you Stephen. I wish I had the answers for you but I don’t. I know they are out there, I believe life has purpose, but I too, am still finding mine.
This isn’t exactly the solution of what I’m going to suggest, but have you thought of traveling some? Maybe outside the country? Sometimes getting out of our daily rut and having a change of scenery can do a lot for the soul. You might ve surprised.
Also! I re-read your introduction to your blog – your “about me” section. It is so beautifully written. It so beautifully expresses you…. I hope you re-read it and feel some of those feelings come back awake past the strangle-hold of sorrow… I love you….
This is not you Stephen! You are better and stronger than this! Reach out. So many love you.
You’re supposed to “lift the world”…not scare and hurt everyone that loves you!!
Let go of what’s dragging you down. Reach out to your friends and family.
You are not alone.
Stephen,
I hope you know that you are loved. I hope you know that no matter your belief in god, status of your faith, your journey for sexual liberation, or your level of motivation to keep going, you are loved all the same and you are safe. Judgement is not what we may perceive it to be, and peering outside of the window of its influence, we may see that we can become immune to it. I do not judge you. While I don’t follow Him, I believe that He does not judge you. The “imperfections” that you struggle with are common to us all, it’s just a matter of all of us being truthful about them. You are not alone. We do not judge you. And most of all, you are loved – unconditionally.