Thoughts on Dreams

Recently, I've been thinking about strength, like the tenacious mental kind, not really the brute force kind. Maybe patience or perseverance would be better terms given the circumstance. Anyways, I had the worst case of the Mondays this Labor Day Tuesday that I think I've ever had, and I've been wondering about how people get on with their lives when things aren't going their way.

I spoke with my parents, my co workers, fellow students, and came up with one simple one: "shut up, you baby." Not really, but essentially, life frequently presents tough obstacles that we either overcome, or fail in trying, or fail to try.

I don't really know what started me down this particular path, but my habit has certainly been to give up when things get rough, and yesterday I was rebelling against my circumstance, trying to find a way out, rationalizing some kind of quitting. The first figure in my life that I remember calling me out on this behavior was my high school cross country coach, Youngblood. He told me something along the lines of "if you quit the first time, you will be able to quit everything too easily for the rest of your life." How true that has been.

I quit this, that, the other, and a whole slew of other garbage when it's gotten too tough for my comfort: jobs, relationships, therapy programs, classes (!), workout programs, academic majors, and for what? I think my fear of the difficult and fear of failure and habit have driven me to quit almost everything good in my life for no other reason than to preserve whatever fragile self-image I might have had of myself.

Yet in trying to preserve my self-image, I've ruined any real accomplishment and contribution I might have made as I've aged into an adult. In fact, my body might be maturing, but in case I address some deep character flaws, I will never be able to hold myself responsible for the ultimate failures I've made in various aspects of my life, a key part of being a "mature" "adult."

God Damn do I fucking miss everything I might be doing if I had taken charge and made the hard decisions and endured the difficult times and seen even one thing through past the one day or hour or moment when I decided "enough is enough." I miss you. If you're reading this, wondering what I'm talking about, I'm talking about you. I miss everything. I miss you.

To put it metaphorically, there are 15 different ways I can walk between my classes. If I look to another pathway and see a cute girl I want to check out in person, I'll change paths to walk closer by that person. I'm losing a bit of time. But I look back on the path I was just on and fall in love with the girl I might have crossed by had I stayed on my original path. My reason to dip out was weak, and now I can see across the lawn to the life I wish I was living.

How do people have the strength to endure the everyday? Where do people find the patience to face the difficulties in ones life, and learn and change and grow and do great? Why do I shoot myself in the foot in every aspect of my being, burning bridges and avoiding my potential for great learning and passion in my life.

Instead, I'm stuck feeling that I've had no great accomplishments in my life since high school, which are spoon-fed to kids anyways in order to build self-esteem.

There's just one thing that I love and cherish and miss the most that I won't elaborate on any longer, but losing it was an inevitable consequence of the habits I built up in my years on Earth. It floors me and renders me helpless for entire days if the thought even crosses my mind.

With all these painful thoughts going through my mind, I wonder how I'll endure my existence, but my experience tells me it'll pass and I'll move on with my life. However, I can't say it'll make me stronger, as I've ended up weaker after every turn so far.