Quicksand

In the last couple of years the element of kindness has been top of mind for me. I’ve written a lot about hitting rock bottom.  Everyone has shit. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone is flawed.

For whatever reason my openness about my life struggles has connected me with so many people.

Perhaps because we’re all sick and tired of seeing people’s highlight reels on social media. I learned a long time ago, the highlight reels are pretty much bullshit anyway. No one posts about how glorious their depression and anxiety is, how much they hate their thighs, how they’re living paycheck to paycheck and just maxed out their credit card. Or they’re just unhappy and have no idea why.  What fun is showing all the high points – I find reality much more… connecting and frankly, hilarious.

‘Oh you have a perfect life? Welp, I’m going to go drown myself in a vat of ice cream over here …”

<<Insert eyeroll>>

I learned a while ago that inauthenticity triggers me. Any time I sense an ounce of bullshit I am completely turned off and I run the other way. I know I’m not alone. I have found people crave genuineness. 

I am currently working on not judging people who feel the need to make themselves and their lives appear perfect and without flaw. Those are the people that need kindness the most, because there’s a reason they feel the need to show only the highlight reel. What that reason is, I don’t know – could be a multitude of things based upon insecurity. And at the end of the day, point me to one person without insecurity (and I’ll show you apsychopath – just kidding – kind of). 

On the flip side, people who show their warts, don’t judge mine and don’t claim perfection are my people. Even more so, people who claim their warts and move forward every day to better themselves and don’t play victim, those really are my people. It’s easy to play victim and sit in your own shit and just say, “poor me’. We could all do that. I’ve done that. I’ve done that SEVERAL times. 

I just don’t stay there. For me, that’s a dangerous place. And a gross place.
I see it as a kind of quicksand of resentment, jealousy, rage, sadness, bitterness and all the gross feelings based upon others’ actions which you cannot control.

I have an inkling that if you’re still reading this, you wince at that sentence because you have been there in that ugly quicksand. And sometimes it’s REALLY fucking hard to get out of. 

I’ve mentioned quite a bit that there are three sides to every story. My issue with watching the news or someone posting something on social media complaining about someone else is the other party can’t tell their side. 

Someone posted this picture of the lion the other day and it perfectly exemplifies how I’ve seen life the last few years. It’s really easy to make an assumption if you’re only given one vantage point. But what if you try and look at things from a different angle?

Like most people, I’m sure, I struggle with having some resentment. I work daily, on releasing ugly feelings of any kind. Some are harder to release than others. I did an exercise the other day that proved to be cathartic and used my own advice. I wrote about a situation I have resentment over but I wrote from the other person’s vantage point. 

It turned my thoughts of “How could you do something like that?” to “Oh, I still don’t like it, but I understand it a little better.”

To me, even an inkling of a better-feeling thought is progress. and working on getting one inch out of the quicksand.