Personal – Half-Blood Kuwaiti

You’re Not Spiritual, You’re Just an Asshole

Ten years ago, if I had met someone who told me they were on a spiritual journey, I would have been enthralled. Now, I’m more likely to run the other way. It’s not that I hate spirituality. I think it’s amazing. I even follow @theholisticpsychologist, although sometimes I wish I didn’t. It’s just that when I think of a spiritual person, I think of someone humble, deep, and capable of experiencing life on a whole different level. What I usually get is someone who hates their father and is too busy finding themselves to commit to lunch plans.

It just seems like spirituality has become a trend, and while a helpful philosophy becoming popular should be a good thing, that tends to not be what happens. Whenever something becomes mainstream, it automatically loses a lot of its nuance. It has to in order to be accessible to average people who haven’t looked at the subject in depth and probably aren’t interested in making radical changes to their lives. Susan who practices five minutes of daily mindfulness wants to reduce her anxiety, not find the source of all human suffering.

It’s not bad to simplify concepts to help a normal person live a better life. But we have to be careful. While we acknowledge that religion can easily be misused or misapplied, spirituality isn’t regarded with the same suspicion (despite spawning its own fair share of sexual predators).

One of the first problems with the current discourse around self-help and spirituality is that the same messages are being sent to very different people, who may not have enough self-awareness to determine what applies to them and what doesn’t. There is a lot of focus on being yourself, saying no, and not being responsible for other people’s feelings. That’s exactly what some people need to hear. However, it’s not as many people as you might think, despite the vast number who will tell you their toxic trait is “being too nice.” After all, the problems in our lives tend not to be caused by having too many unselfish people around us. Many people would benefit from being less self-centered—being encouraged to help others and think less about their own desires. When only the first message is circulated, everyone picks it up, and what happens is much like when a narcissist or psychopath sees a therapist. They don’t change, they just learn how to dress up their self-centered behavior in fancy words that make it harder for others to argue with. Disagree with someone like this and expect it to be labeled gaslighting, shutting down all further discussion because a difference of opinion is now a psychological manipulation tactic. Expect a certain standard of behavior from them, and you will be treated like you’re codependent, trying to change them, or too attached to whatever aspect of the conventional world best dismisses your point. To the toxic woke person, the only emotionally healthy people are those who don’t ask anything of them.

The second big problem is that the spiritual quest is often seen as seeking your authentic self, but what gets left out is that the authentic self in a spiritual sense is the part of you that is closest to God or a higher power. It’s not your personality or anything we mean by the self in the usual context. Monks and nuns sometimes practice cultivating an inner and outer silence in order to more clearly hear the voice of God in their heads. You probably know the voice they’re referring to even if you wouldn’t describe it as God. Essentially, the personality needs to be subdued for the higher self to emerge. This means abandoning your ego and surrendering to something greater than yourself. When this distinction about the meaning of the true self is lost and you remove the connection to some type of higher power, even if it’s just the universe, the result is a radical change in purpose. The end goal becomes you and figuring out what you want. But the destination at the end of the journey should not be you. It should be letting go of you.

This isn’t because it makes you a better person or more pleasant to be around, although it does both of those things. It’s because this is how spirituality will make you happier in the end. The person who goes for a walk in the woods or sits by the ocean and feels lighter and freer feels that way because they’ve been reminded of how unimportant their own worries are compared to the vastness of the universe. They feel small and insignificant, but not in a bad way, because they are also a part of the world that has just left them wonderstruck. This person has just let go of a bit of their ego and felt connected to something more important.

These are the things that bring a person peace–connection to something more, seeing our problems with perspective, feeling that we bring something of value to the world, loving and being loved, and being in control of ourselves. None of these things are easy, but any path towards fulfillment that doesn’t include them is going to be incomplete.

For some reason, spirituality has a reputation for being Religion Lite—all the fuzzy feelings associated with it without the annoying parts. No rules, only vibes. In reality, spirituality is the purpose behind the rules of religion. In his book The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley discusses the concepts all religions have in common, and it’s not things like having one god or respecting your parents. It’s that rules and spiritual practices like praying and fasting are designed with the goal of diminishing your ego so that you submit to the will of God. All religions are meant to achieve this. People would rather argue about what the rules are or whose rules are better than look at the big picture, which is that the rules are there to teach you discipline. This matters more than the rules themselves.

I don’t say this to glorify religion. I just say it to illustrate that the idea of the spiritual path being easier than the religious one is based on a misunderstanding. Spirituality is the ultimate goal of religion and choosing it means taking responsibility for your own development instead engaging in rituals mindlessly. This is actually harder than just being religious. The spiritual person prays because they know it’s good for them. The religious person prays because they think God will punish them. For most people, threats are much more effective.

Spirituality that brings you only to yourself and your desires isn’t real. Any philosophy that results in you focusing on your own feelings all the time isn’t going to make you a better person. It can be necessary somewhere along your path to go through a period of self-absorption, but the purpose of understanding your trauma and emotions isn’t so that you can indulge them—it’s so that you overcome them. The next step should be moving forward.

If that next step isn’t reached, if the goal is focusing on the self for its own sake, you will get the problems we see around us. People will break commitments because being authentic to their (passing) feelings takes precedence. They will mis-interpret self-acceptance as an excuse to never grow, and a reason why no one should ever criticize them. Boundaries will be set from a place of avoidance instead of courage. You might have met examples of this in real life, perhaps in friends who think they should never be uncomfortable, or men who tell you how unenlightened you are when you ask them to stop sleeping with other people.

This type of spirituality involves avoiding discomfort rather than facing it, except perhaps the discomfort in cutting off relatives who vote Republican. I think we should bring back the type of spirituality people have to suffer for. What happened to meditating forty days under a tree, giving up your worldly possessions, or taking a vow of silence? Some monks clean as a form of meditation. In certain convents nuns are not allowed to look at themselves in the mirror to discourage vanity. Most people now would say, “There’s no real point to doing these things,” not understanding that the whole point is that it’s difficult. Doing hard things changes you, or at least teaches you something. I don’t believe you need to go to these lengths to develop a beneficial level of spirituality in your life, but if I’m going to be taking advice from someone, I’d rather take it from the person who spent a year challenging themselves than the person who spent a year doing whatever they wanted.

Human beings are better off when they don’t make themselves their own gods, usually because they aren’t very good at it. Much like children, we are happier with limits than when we follow our every whim. Relying on a consistent set of principles frees you from the burden of constantly evaluating your inner state to determine what to do next. And understanding how little we can control, even about our own futures, puts us in the frame of mind to accept what happens with grace. Religious people are often happier because they have given up the burden of believing they are the ultimate authority on their lives. Whatever is planned for them may be what’s best, even if it isn’t what they thought they wanted.

In the end, the easy way out is never real. Selfish people will always find a way to continue being selfish if they want to, so perhaps blaming it on poorly explained spirituality isn’t going to change them. But maybe looking at a more nuanced perspective will help the people who encounter them. Don’t be impressed or guilted when someone hits you with words that could have been picked up from the explore page of Instagram. Instead look at their actions. Is their life a good example of strong values? Has their brand of spirituality changed them for the better? Perhaps more importantly, has it affected the people around them positively? If not, smile, nod, and run the other way. The wolf who admits he is a wolf can be dealt with. The wolf who believes himself to be a sheep is impossible.

3 Ways We Refuse To Take Responsibility For Our Lives

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Razvan Chisu on Unsplash

It is interesting to me how much power and agency the average middle-class person has and how often they refuse to use it. Power is a strange thing. Most people do not feel powerful. But I believe we choose not to recognize our own agency and abilities because then we would be responsible for using them, and that responsibility is a very frightening thing.

It is more comfortable to blame others for our unhappiness than to acknowledge that we are where we are largely through our own actions. I read something once along the lines of, “We all have what we want most.” That might seem contrary to your experience, but it’s not wrong. Many people would rather be safe than happy. They might say they want to be rich, but what they want is to continue spending money. They might say they want to meet someone and fall in love, but they would rather not risk rejection.

I have three favorite ways of avoiding responsibility in my own life, but I am sure there are many others. I’m sure I do many more that I haven’t realized yet. But I think if I can work on these, I will be a lot closer to where I want to be.

1. Caring more about being right than reaching goals.

This is a big one in every aspect of our lives. Instead of telling people how we want to be treated, we test them and judge them if they get it wrong. If we really want other people to make us happy, we should give them all the information they need to do that. And we should understand that to increase the chances of successfully getting what we want from them, we should not approach the subject as though we are a victim and they have wronged us. It might be true, but that doesn’t mean it will work.

In other areas, this could manifest as refusing to compromise your artistic vision to be successful (which is fine, but expect to be less successful), refusing to ask for opportunities or promotions because other people should realize you deserve them, or insisting on any course of action after it has been shown to not produce the results you want. On some level, people know what to do to get what they want. They just don’t believe they should have to do it.

2. Believing choices that would cause conflict are not options.

How often do we say, “I can’t do x, y, or x,” but we really mean that it would be uncomfortable or cause a conflict with someone else? This sounds like, “I can’t marry the person I want because my family wouldn’t approve,” or, “My husband won’t let me have male friends.” It’s nice that you don’t want to upset people, but you are making a choice. People do not have nearly as much control over you as they would like you to think.

It is not wrong to upset other people or say no. It’s unpleasant, but if you can learn to live with that feeling, you will finally be free.

You might say that you can’t stand up for yourself. But this probably doesn’t mean you can’t, it means that perhaps it makes you very anxious or you start crying. But you can still speak your mind even if you are crying. You do not have to do something perfectly for it to be effective.

Part of the reason why we are reluctant to risk conflict is we don’t have good conflict resolution skills. I personally have spent more of my life focusing on conflict avoidance skills. These boil down to trying to be polite, apologizing quickly, and giving in. To many people, it is a terrifying thing to honor your own wishes knowing that it will upset someone you love. Beneath that is the unspoken belief that they will no longer love you if you have caused them anger. We believe we do not have enough to offer to still be worth it after we have upset them. Which is strange, because the people who usually feel this way are upset by others all the time and still care about them.

The ironic thing is that we would not struggle so much with conflict if we weren’t expecting someone else to fulfill the needs we refuse to meet ourselves. The confrontation becomes weighted and intense because so much relies on the other person responding how we desire. On the flip side, every person who takes responsibility for their own happiness makes it easier for everyone around them to do the same. If I meet my own needs, I will not be upset by what you need to do to meet yours. If I know my boundaries, I will not be torn when you ask me to violate them. I will simply say no, calmly and politely, because what really affects us is feeling powerless. I will be upset by attempts to manipulate me if I fear that they might work. I will be upset by insults if I secretly agree with them. If I know who I am and that I deserve to be happy, I will have no desire to control someone else. (Or at least a significantly decreased desire. No one’s perfect.)

3. Externalizing insecurities and hoping others will fix them.

I have not thought about this one as much as the others, but I think it is still valid. I have noticed that people tend to gravitate towards those who see them the way they see themselves. That’s not inherently negative because hopefully the way you see yourself is not inherently negative. But let’s be realistic. It frequently is.

Instead of facing our self-doubt, we look for someone who doubts us as well and try to win their approval. If we can convince them, maybe this is proof that we should believe it ourselves. And this process only works with people who see the flaws we are self-conscious about.

I see this happen a lot in romantic relationships. People chase those who don’t like them because they don’t like themselves. It’s not very reassuring to prove yourself to someone who already likes you. This person just seems to have low standards to us. No, we want someone perhaps even harsher than ourselves. And this is why we stay with people who are critical and put us down. We think, “If I can get this person who hates x, y, or z about me to think I’m great, imagine how wonderful I must seem to all the people who already thought I was fine.” Perfectionism, the root of a lot of self-esteem issues, wants us to reach a state where we are immune to criticism or disapproval. So no wonder we would be more interested in the people who don’t value us. We really think they can’t exist for us to be okay.

If you value yourself, the whole conflict disappears. When you really, really value yourself, you realize how powerful and capable you are. And you force yourself to act on it even if it might be difficult at first. Growth is not supposed to be comfortable. Think of how much babies cry when they get teeth. But it’s all worth it in the end, because they finally get to eat real food.

What Do I Do After I Figure Out What’s Wrong With Me?

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Juan Rumimpuna on Unsplash

I have been thinking about this question for several months now. I’m at a point where I may still be crazy, but I understand it better than ever. I’ve even figured out how it originated too, except for a few bits that can only be attributed to the generosity of God. But I don’t know what to do with this information.

I’ve always been good at sitting and analyzing my problems. Throughout childhood and adolescence, I made numerous lists of traits I wanted to correct about myself. My sister called this feeling sorry for myself, so I made sure to add that to the list. But these lists did not produce long-lasting results. They did, however, produce more lists.

The internet likes to suggest therapy as a catch-all solution for personal issues, and while I am not disagreeing with that, I’ve often wished that people would go further and explain a bit of the magic that is supposed to happen behind the closed doors of a therapist’s office. It’s like telling someone to go to the gym but no one wanting to explain what you’ll do when you get there. Then, when you finally go, you realize you could have done a lot of it in your own home and no one is blaming your parents nearly as much as you were hoping they would.

Anyway. My point is, a lot of self-improvement/healing is either about forcing yourself to be more productive or simply realizing why you have the issues you do. I have a few problems with this. First of all, I have realized many things in my life and failed to act on these realizations in any meaningful way. Second, if forcing yourself worked, people would keep their New Year’s resolutions.

Here is an example I have been thinking about recently. I procrastinate a lot and although it’s not a huge issue, I’d like to fix it. I have read that procrastination is often motivated by perfectionism, which is great, because I always thought it was because I was lazy. PSA to my high school chemistry teacher, former boss, and entire family: I’m not lazy. I’m seeking perfection. Apparently it’s a very thin line.

Anyway, the in-depth explanation for this did resonate with me. But it didn’t make a difference. I just understand why I procrastinate as I continue to do it. So I discussed this with someone recently, hoping for advice, but she did not offer any solution. She just said, “It’s not about fixing every little thing you don’t like about yourself.”

Strangely, I had never thought of it like that before. I didn’t realize that the purpose of gaining insight might just be to have more sympathy for myself and make slightly better decisions, and that that is enough. Insight is not a stepping stone to overhauling my personality.

Maybe healing and improving are not about fighting your nature to become a well-oiled machine. Maybe emotional health doesn’t manifest as effortlessly getting up at 5 AM each day, liking the taste of green smoothies, and becoming a CEO in your free time. Maybe it’s recognizing you hate that and shouldn’t try to bully yourself into becoming a different person.

It’s terrifying to accept that you will always more or less be the way you have always been, that no big change is coming. But I’ve tried to stay in this mindset the past few days, and I’ve found when you free yourself from constant self-shaming, it’s easier to do more of the small things each day that make your life better. Maybe a transformation is more likely to happen when you stop feeling like one is necessary for you to be worthy of self-acceptance.

I will never be the type-A overachiever I see as the embodiment of success (despite never actually liking these people in real life). I may be a bit of a perfectionist but I’m also lazy, and I can’t keep denying that when I check “Contactless Delivery” while ordering food, not because I fear corona but because I don’t want to change out of my pajamas to answer the door. I’m really bad at anything that pays well or involves sports, I’m scared to call people on the phone, and it’s remarkable how long I can stay in one place without moving. But that doesn’t mean someone else with different flaws would have a better life. (On a positive note, I can out-knit your grandma, and I’m really easygoing as long as you don’t get to know me well.)

Somehow, I’ve been thinking all this time that I could not be okay yet if I still have this many faults.

We cling to the idea of some people having perfect lives even though it’s illogical. We know we’re comparing our behind the scenes to their highlight reel, but we do it because we want to believe it can be a reality, and one day maybe our reality. Deep down, the voice inside of us is saying,

Perhaps, if I just do something differently, I will not have to be myself anymore.

I didn’t just write lists of my flaws as a child. I also wrote letters to my future self, as well as dramatic diary entries about various book characters and famous people I wished I were more like. Ironically, I actually did become many of the things I hoped for in these letters (except for popular and married at 17). And I was far more like the people I admired than I knew at the time. But even if I had seen these similarities back then, I wouldn’t have believed in them. And I think that takes us back to the original question. What do I do after I figure out what’s wrong with me?

I think the answer is, put down the scalpel, take a leap of faith, and believe in everything that’s right.

Let’s Be Marginally More Positive

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Anton on Unsplash

Only marginally, because excessive positivity is annoying and anxiety-inducing. Either things aren’t actually that good (annoying), or they are and God knows that can’t last (anxiety-inducing).

It feels selfish to talk about any personal benefits I’ve experienced from the corona pandemic when it has caused harm to so many others, but I need to be grateful, and I thought it might be a nice change from the usual stuff I write. I am lucky. Very lucky. Isolation may have eroded parts of my mind that I was once quite attached to, but that isn’t important. Today I’m going to count my blessings. Here is a non-exhaustive list of ways quarantine has benefitted me.

I have learned to appreciate the little things, like staying out past 6, not fearing the outdoors, and how good food tastes when it is prepared by literally anyone else besides me. On really dark days, I miss going to work.

I have an airtight excuse not to kiss my relatives for at least two years. Maybe the whole custom of cheek-kissing will die completely. I have never understood what pleasure I am supposed to derive from it, and if I started actively enjoying it, people would get very uncomfortable. So really, what is the point?

I have been forced to confront mental health problems I might have otherwise ignored. This is definitely 100% a positive thing! No drawbacks whatsoever! Without corona, I could have gone years without realizing I was crazy. That would have been dreadful. Truly, this was the biggest benefit of all.

My parents finally have a good reason to be glad I didn’t make it in medical school. Instead of risking my health and theirs working in a hospital, I’m at home, binge-watching TV shows made by people who have actually done something with their lives, and therefore come in contact with more germs. Corona has lowered the bar for underachieving children everywhere. I may not be rich, successful, or particularly well-educated, but I’m alive. At a time like this, what more could you ask for?

Face masks are cheaper than the nose job I occasionally consider.

I’ve learned new and exciting ways to bond with my family members. The most effective method I’ve found so far is to encourage them to complain about each other to me. Quarantine has given us lots to work with there, and annoyance with others is the common thread uniting humanity. I read in a book that the term for this is “triangulation,” and it is not healthy. Perhaps not. But it works and it’s not going to permanently damage my lungs, so I don’t see the problem.

I’ve gotten much more comfortable with how I look without makeup. I used to hide my face behind glasses if I wasn’t wearing eyeliner, and now I think putting on clothes is the most the world should ask of me. Plus, my makeup is now the wrong color. Corona has taught me to be grateful for the tan I never knew I used to have.

My relationship with my cat has flourished in direct proportion to the degree my connection with the outside world has crumbled. In other words, we have become very close. She’s one of the few beings I know that is needier than I am. I used to think her erratic behavior was due to my not spending more time with her, but now I realize she’s just crazy. It’s comforting to not be the only one.

In Defense of Binge-Watching Television

black flat screen tv turned on displaying 11

Mollie Sivaram on Unsplash

Ever since childhood, I’ve had a wide variety of interests. Skimming through the books in my old room takes me back to some of the phases I went through: Origami Magic, HTML in a Week, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ballroom Dancing, Ballet for Dummies. On an unrelated note, I may have also had low self-esteem.

Most of these interests did not go anywhere. I revisited Origami Magic recently, thinking it might be easier for me now than it was in first grade, only to find I had actually regressed. I still haven’t learned to spin wool even though I bought a spindle in 2016, and as you might have guessed, very few people learn how to dance from books. My career as a pianist lost steam around the time I saw a four-year-old Chinese boy play the hardest song I knew better than me. I thought recently about what I had actually stuck with long-term, and a common theme emerged. I have become really good at hobbies that can be done while watching TV.

The TV, our most devoted quarantine friend, has been the subject of considerable criticism. It’s been accused of wasting our time, ruining our morals, and turning our children into idiots. I once had a parent claim it was why her son hit me and chased me with a pair of scissors. “Too much television,” she sighed. (I had a slightly different theory.)

Maybe we are just looking at it too negatively. The TV is a valuable tool–if we just understand how to use it properly. It actually benefits us in many ways.

It immobilizes people, for one thing. Especially children. Anything that keeps a child still, in one place, without warranting a call to Child Services, can’t be all bad. But even adults benefit from sitting. I Love Lucy was so popular in the 1950s that the crime rate in New York went down when it was on the air. Mobile adults go to war, take advantage of the working class, and accidentally impregnate each other. If more time were spent Netflixing than chilling, the world would be a considerably less sinful place. Studies show that couples with TVs in their bedrooms get less action. And less action is exactly what God wants you to have.

On a serious note, you actually will amp up your productivity if you can combine repetitive activities with television. If you want to learn something new, consider knitting or crocheting just because of how TV-friendly they are. Know thyself, and therefore aim low. Use TV to motivate you to exercise, attempt a tedious recipe (like stuffed grape leaves), or do housework. Get creative with finding ways to do your usual activities from the sofa. Watching TV from exciting new positions is a great way to start doing yoga. Is your favorite show just as good upside down? Let’s find out!

It may be sad that we find it so difficult to focus on one thing at a time these days, but does feeling bad about that somehow improve your attention span? No. So accept it and use it to your advantage. Sometimes the way to accomplish more is to numb out your brain.

TV quiets your mind, or kills it, as my mother would say. But that’s not all bad. There is an old joke that says the only reason you believe your brain is the most important organ in your body is because your brain is telling you that. The truth is, your brain is overrated. Even my brain is overrated. How many problems do we create for ourselves by worrying, ruminating, or coming up with excuses? All of these things are functions of the brain. Sometimes the answer is to think less.

Television gives you that. It gives you temporary reprieve from the agonies of your mind. And it isn’t simply a distraction, a way to deny reality until you finally turn it off. Stories help us cope with the hardships in our lives, no matter what form they come in. They give our struggles meaning and teach us to believe in happy endings. When times are really bad, we need the most easily accessible types of stories to comfort us. You might not feel like reading Dickens or Tolstoy when you get divorced or find out your parents never wanted you to be born. But you will turn on the TV.

Most sitcoms deal with topics that are very serious, but we laugh about them. This is their magic. If the characters we love can laugh through a tragedy, it tells us that maybe we can too.

At the end of the day, I even believe TV can motivate people to succeed. At some point, after spending hours watching other people do stuff, you’re going to want to do something of your own. Project Runway makes me sew more, cooking shows make me cook and consequently eat more, which is precisely why I don’t watch them. You will want to do what you see. One of the reasons we watch TV is because it is aspirational. It shows us who we could be, in another life with good lighting and makeup men. If you are confused about who you are, look at what you like to watch. Look at the characters you love. What speaks to you and makes you keep watching long after your backside gets sore and your eyes burn? Don’t, however, take it too literally. Liking Breaking Bad does not mean your destiny lies in drugs. But it could mean you desire more adventure in your life. I’ve always gravitated towards heartwarming comedies because adventure and action are exactly what I don’t want. I want security and positive relationships. And, after I watch The X Factor, to be wildly famous.

In a nutshell, how can you discover your life purpose, finally start working out, and conquer the intrusive thoughts in your head about how you’re a stain on the reputation of your family? It’s easier than you think. Just watch more television.

Reality, My Mortal Enemy

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Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

I’ve never been a particularly regretful person.

Not because I make good decisions. That is not the reason at all. No, it is due either to a sort of natural optimism I have or a diminished ability to understand consequences. 2020, I hope, will be an exciting year of figuring out which one it is.

But recently, I’ve realized a few things were a poor use of mental energy. It’s not that I regret what I did or, as they always say, what I didn’t do, but the way I thought.

The first regret hit me while I was performing a Marie Kondo on my closet a few weeks ago. It seems minor, but it made me think. As I sadly got rid of clothes I liked but never wore, I realized how often I had bought a size small, just because I could fit myself into it, when a medium or large would have been more comfortable. I wonder why I pursued not even being the smallest size possible but qualifying as the smallest size possible. Changing the label on your jacket does not make any difference to your body. It is not an effective diet. It just means that you won’t be able to move your arms freely for the entirety of winter.

I also regret the amount of time I spent wondering who was right and who was wrong in a variety of conflicts. I realized in 2019 that when two people hate each other, they are probably both right. They always are to some extent—just as they are also wrong. The quest for some kind of objective truth that justifies all your own feelings and actions is a jump down a rabbit hole at best. And it’s the wrong question to ask. Figuring out why you should have gotten something is much less helpful than figuring out why you didn’t and how you can change that.

At work I dealt with a minor complaint recently, and while my first impulse was to be offended, it’s not useful. It doesn’t really matter if the complaint was deserved. What matters is that it happened, and if I don’t want it to be made again, I should address it in the most effective way possible, regardless of my opinion of the complainer. Understanding their motives will help me figure out the best approach, but deciding they don’t deserve for me to listen to them overlooks the fact that I don’t want to be complained about.

On a related note, I regret all the energy I spent on moral outrage, fuming about how “they should know not to behave like that” when I could have just said, “Please don’t do that,” and it wouldn’t have been done. At the back of my mind I knew I could get the results I wanted if I handled the other person intelligently and maturely, but I would only do so if I felt they had behaved in a manner that made them worthy of such cooperation. And usually, for me to feel that they deserved this enlightened treatment, they could never have done anything wrong for me to discuss with them in the first place. Surprisingly, this approach does not have a high success rate.

I regret trying to change feelings I’ve had but didn’t like instead of using them as objective information about my self and my values. I used to really dislike the idea that “all feelings are valid” because many people react emotionally in ways that do not seem fair to me. But feelings themselves are very logical. People just don’t know where they really come from. If you are upset by something, you have a good reason for it. It may not be that someone wronged you. But there is something bothering you that makes sense, whether it’s an emotional issue of your own or a behavior of someone else’s that you can’t tolerate. It always has meaning. To ignore that is to give up the only reliable source of information you have on how to find your own happiness.

A common theme in all of these regrets of mine is a refusal to accept reality. But this is the heart of it:

It doesn’t matter what size I think I should be.

It doesn’t matter how I should feel.

It doesn’t matter what I should be happy with.

It doesn’t matter how other people should behave.

What matters is what actually happens.

It’s as if I’ve been going through life with green hair, and because I don’t like green hair, I go around hoping people will tell me it’s actually aquamarine or turquoise instead. Nothing people say or I tell myself changes the color of my hair in reality. And instead of this odd game of trying to change something without actually changing anything, I could just dye my hair. But first I have to admit there is a problem, but I guess we don’t want to do that because we’re scared we can’t fix it, and all we’ll have done by acknowledging it is ruin our ability to live in a deluded little bubble.

I hope that 2020 is a year of looking in the mirror, and, if I genuinely want to, dyeing my hair.

Happy New Year, Losers

fireworks with lighting

JANUPRASAD on Unsplash

2019 was one of the best years of my life. It may only qualify for that distinction due to lack of competition from the other years, but it is still true. And I’m proud of myself for genuinely feeling that it was a good year even though I gained a considerable amount of weight, something that would once have bothered me to no end. But the path to plumpness was paved with such good food that I cannot fully regret it, so I tell myself that of course I gained weight, because 2019 was the year I Gave Birth To Myself.

By that I mean that it was an exciting, transformative year and in no way intend to diminish my mother’s contribution to my actual birth.

I have already lost some of the weight because I start thinking about the next year in November and actually start on my resolutions then. So my sister felt freer to tell me her impression of me at my heaviest after it had passed. “You even gained weight on your lips,” she whispered with alarm. I don’t think this is true, but someone did give me an odd look and say, “Why do you look like you just made out with a vacuum cleaner?” and I guarantee the reason was not that I had just made out with a vacuum cleaner.

New Year’s Resolution #1: Never reach a point in this year or any other so low that I develop a romantic interest in household appliances. Do not make eyes at the pink mechanical sweeper I bought just because it was pretty.

2019 was illuminating because I lost several people, both literally and in the sense that I lost what I wanted them to mean to me. It’s a good way to learn about yourself. That’s not a recommendation you have to take, though, because life will probably force it down your throat regardless of what you do.

It hurts but I find a certain satisfaction in it, because once it happens a few times, you realize that you actually will be okay. That it can happen again, and it will be fine then too. I let people ruin my opinion of them now when once I thought that was a terrible tragedy. I mean why should I avoid the pain when my ability to allow joy into my life can never exceed my willingness to allow in sadness?

Pain is an incredible motivator. The worse you feel, the more unbearable your situation becomes, forcing you to change. This is what I call Realistic Optimism. Now when I meet new people, I don’t think, “What’s going to end up being the matter with you?” because that would be negative. Instead I say, “What delightful new hobby will I take up to cope with the grief and despair you have in store for me? Could you be the one who pushes me to spin wool like I’ve been planning for the past four years?”

New Year’s Resolution #2: Find someone who fills me with a heartache so agonizing that it can only be expressed through song, as I would love to get back to playing the piano.

My main hope for 2020 is to be surprised (in a good way), which is not something you can plan for yourself without ruining the surprise, so I don’t have a long list of resolutions. Also, setting the bar low for yourself is an act of revolt against capitalism. I do, however, want to write more, and I would like the courage to “decompartmentalize” this part of myself. I realized recently that it does not make sense to write a blog, want people to read it, and then deliberately hide it from everyone in my life. I have yet to act on this realization, but it’s in the works and expected to be implemented by 2050.

New Year’s Resolution #3: Try to reach a place in life where my mother can find my blog and neither of us will cry.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I Was There Too

silhouette of woman standing beside body of water — Brannon Naito on Unsplash

There are a few incidents in my life that confuse me because I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about them. I know that “supposed to feel” isn’t the best phrasing, and I should ask how I actually feel, but I don’t know the answer to that either. It’s just a blank space. This is why I say knowing the “correct” emotional response matters, because sometimes, we won’t allow ourselves to respond unless our reaction is supported by the script of what’s “proper” and “appropriate.”

Many times, I didn’t know how I should respond emotionally. And so I decided it was best not to at all. 3/10 would not recommend this approach to a friend.

One event keeps resurfacing in my mind. I had tried to put my feelings aside. I couldn’t, and I responded to the whole situation by crying. I didn’t say or do anything except cry. Much later, when I revisited the memory, I asked myself how the person in front of me could see so much evidence that I was upset and not react.

It’s a normal question, a healthy question, and it should be asked. But then I realized something else. It wasn’t one person alone in a room. I was there too. Two people saw me crying, and I was the one who cared the least.

I knew better than anyone the pain I was feeling, and I did not think it deserved any recognition. I did not speak about it, I did not act on it, I did not want to have any type of conversation about it. I later denied my tears came from anything except stress.

When I think of the whole situation now, I don’t have any feelings. It’s like I wasn’t there—but I was there. I didn’t want to be. But I was. So I separated from it mentally to such an extent that I don’t know where the part of me who was present and felt everything is. I don’t know where feelings go when we tell them to die. I just know that they don’t die.

Why do we believe we can devalue ourselves and someone will witness it and refuse to let it happen? We have picked the people who are present in our lives. If I do not love myself, I have not picked people based on whether they treat me with love. What we really want is to be agreed with. This is our comfort zone: people who see us as we see ourselves. This is what we surround ourselves with.

I do not become more compassionate when I refuse to be compassionate towards the person I see most often. And I would not call myself compassionate towards others if I saw their pain and “felt bad” for them but didn’t take any measures to help. When you practice detaching from yourself, you practice detaching from everyone. You are a person as well. How you treat yourself is included in the definition of how you treat people, and it is more than a technicality. What we think of as two separate attitudes are connected; they are a reflection of each other.

One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou: “I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me, ‘I love you.’ There is an African saying, which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”

Culturally, we glorify self-sacrifice. But this type of “love” is like stealing from the poor to give to the rich. The poor are so used to being poor they’d rather stay that way than change (but they’ll tell you it’s really about you), and the rich don’t really want money, they just think it’s sweet that you’re suffering for them. And none of it is real money, it’s all chocolate coins and suddenly everyone is diabetic.

I don’t know if that makes any sense and I think I should stop now because I’m not ready to examine the metaphorical significance of my eating habits. All I’m saying is maybe, most of the time, we really do have what we want most. We just don’t have what we say we want.

The Way It Is

shallow focus photography of white feather dropping in person's hand — Javardh on Unsplash

I live in my head more than I live any place real. I prefer songs about mountains to actual mountains, the future or past to the present. I mean, I’m in North Carolina right now, and I would rather listen to the song “Carolina in My Mind” and think about being here, than be here.

The goal of spirituality or any other form of self-improvement is, to me, to be able to sit in the now with no distractions and to feel at peace. To be happy with myself without thinking of who I should turn into in the future, to be happy with my present experience without dreaming of what my life needs to become later. I’ve heard that life is what happens while you’re making other plans, but what makes me sad is that life seems to be what happens while you’re trying to think of something else.

It has taken me a long time to realize that ignoring reality does not change it. It sounds obvious, but I don’t think I’m the only person who has tried to overcome problems by pretending they don’t exist or don’t bother me. Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” And there’s nothing the unhealthy part of me likes more than a famous person backing up my denial and other toxic coping mechanisms, but it’s not that simple. A lot of stuff is not in our control. We are given our personalities for better or for worse, and we can think about how we should be one way or another, feel one way or another, and it’s not going to change the truth at all.

You can insist the floor is clean because it should be clean, or you can admit it’s not and get rid of the dirt. What hurts will still hurt even if you tell yourself it doesn’t; what you want deep down you will continue to want even if you think you shouldn’t need it.

I think it requires a lot of self-love to be honest about who you are. We all have reasons to be ashamed of or even to despise ourselves, and you won’t let yourself see the extent of that (to make the best of it) if you don’t believe in your other redeeming qualities. You can’t develop real confidence without self-awareness. The ego is fragile when it’s running from the truth.

There’s no point in running from anything. You won’t end up somewhere better, or anywhere different at all. Why can’t we be happy with what we have? Why is it so hard to admit we have enough? And if we have enough, why are we unhappy?

I like the constancy of reality, though. I can hate someone or love them, and it has nothing to do with whether they deserve either. My feelings are one thing, the other person is probably many different things, and both exist separately from each other. I could be convinced their karma is coming, and they will instead live a happy life. It doesn’t matter what I think.

I hate what I write sometimes because it shows where I’m pretentious or trying too hard or feeling sorry for myself. But I would be all those things whether I wrote about it or not, and it would probably be obvious to everyone else anyway. It just doesn’t matter.

It is what it is. It will continue to be. There’s no point in pretending we aren’t fucked up because we are, everyone is, so what? That’s nothing new to the world. The ocean has watched us have the same problems for thousands of years.

I could go outside and breathe in the fresh air and smile, or sit inside myself and worry about my weight and if I was right about x, y, and z—and forget that I’m not that important. Or remember it and be free. We want to be something and important and special and why? It doesn’t change that we still are nothing more than what we are. We tell stories about our lives but it doesn’t change that story or no story, it all exists just as it is.

I could worry about whether I ought to publish this and what someone reading it would think (and I will a little bit), but not putting it out there doesn’t change my thoughts, who I am, or how many people might find both me and my thoughts obnoxious. I think we are unhappy because we hide from the truth. We think keeping ourselves from being exposed to it somehow changes it. But the truth is our friend. It’s us, when we put the blinders on and hide from life, who are not.

All I Want for Christmas is a Return to the Womb

person touching stomach — Alicia Petresc on Unsplash

Who wouldn’t, amirite? I realized recently it’s the only place I’ve never cried.

Since becoming an aunt, I’ve done a little bit of research on the kinds of things that calm down babies. Apparently swaddling makes them feel more secure because it makes them feel like they did in utero, and they liked being rocked because it mimics what happens to the fetus when the mother moves. My sister also told me how she uses a white noise machine to help her son sleep for the same reason—apparently it’s not so quiet in someone else’s body. It’s not really quiet out here either, but that’s mostly because of my sister’s son.

These young things, only in the world for a short time, already want to make their way back. I certainly can’t blame them. Do we really get over this? As someone who falls asleep frequently in cars (as long as my mother isn’t driving, ironically), I looked it up once and found that this is common and again, probably because it mimics the movement you experienced as a fetus.

Why aren’t people doing more with this? I feel like learning to sleep through the night and being discouraged from sobbing when uncomfortable has conned us all into a very unwomblike adulthood. I admired a swinging bed my sister got for her children and she remarked that the oldest would never sleep in it. He would cry as soon as he was put down. Talk about unappreciative. I would love a swinging bed, but they don’t make them in my size. (They should also start making regular swings I can sit in comfortably, but my theory about how adult gyms should resemble playgrounds is a rant for another day.) I’m also willing to settle for a cradle, even if no one rocks it back and forth for me. But it doesn’t matter—rocking beds are rare, very expensive, and don’t ship to Kuwait. And frankly, I’m scared to do too much googling on anything involving the words “adult” and “baby.” If you don’t know what I mean, count your blessings.

I’m going to have to settle for a weighted blanket, and I don’t mind that, but I think the uterus-inspired bed is a tragically unexplored sleep option. It is based on a fundamental psychological truth most millennials already know—we wish we’d never been born. I read some kind of quasi-inspirational quote once about how a baby crying as soon as it’s born is a sign of life and feeling pain means you’re alive, etc. but like, maybe babies start out crying because they’ve just left the most comfortable place they’ll ever know. Always the right amount of food you never have to ask for, a bed perfectly molded to the shape of your body, and it’s never too hot or too cold. People talk to you, but no one expects you to answer. For the last time ever, everyone gets happy and excited when you kick your mother.

Another bit of poetry I saw a while ago went something like, “I am looking for a home I’ve never been to.” I disagree. You’ve been there, and you just don’t remember it, because it was a uterus.