Sometimes the challenges of life are not met with our best foot forward. There will be times we want to retreat and hide, perhaps from past mistakes that come back to haunt us. At times it feels overwhelming especially in a low season.
Some things that would never have fazed me otherwise become overwhelming. I cannot see past the struggle at hand so I look back, trying to lay blame on the root. What things brought me here? Using my 20/20 hindsight to stay in my pit of wallow, trying to not take responsibility for my present because it is the fault of my past therefore I cannot move forward. Tears seem to medicate momentarily but do not heal, and do not lead to a solution. My reasoning is blurred I can make sense of nothing. But the depression it knows what to do. Stay down play dead as if life’s challenges are like a wild bear. But the government is not like a wild bear, nor are our employers, banks, credit card companies or anyone else who wants your money, time, etc.
The infrastructure of life at times seems like bull shit. We work jobs we don’t like for the majority of our waking week to make not enough money to buy the things we want, but manage on the necessities of life. It takes a lifetime to get ahead and own things and hope that you have provided for your family. You hope to make connections with people worth knowing, rather than some of the creeps you just happen to have to deal with on a day to day basis. If you happen to get a day off you might want to enjoy yourself at home, but I can almost guarantee that your day will be interrupted by a knock on the door from some religious brainwashed nuts who want you to join their cult, and then your life will be better. It won’t be.
You give your life to different employers, and organizations that rape you of your time, dignity, sanity, and try to leave you with as little as possible so they can get ahead.
Does my pessimistic view show? I really am not a pessimist. I was always a hopeful, cheerful optimist. I thought I saw the best in many things. I was young and encourage able, whatever hopeful hoopla I was fed was swallowed happily. Not even thinking of how the choices I made when I was young would affect me down the road. Not thinking that eating crap lead to deteriorating health, or investing in a sinking ship sinks your money with it. I really am not a pessimist though, just more easily annoyed by bull shit lately. My bullshit radar has gone up, while by bull shit tolerance level has gone way down.
Certainly I have been hurt by life, by people, by work, by organizations, etc. But we all have and it is not an excuse to become a cynical elderly person. Or a cynical middle aged person, it is easy to complain, to do nothing. Not so easy to take control of what I want my life to be. I am afraid that I will make the same mistakes and afraid that I will not succeed at anything, but failing at something does not make us a failure at everything. My biggest failure is perhaps not asking for help. I become so proud that I must appear to have all the answers, when really I do not have many.
Not having answers to faith when I thought I should. I guided others in faith in using faith to chart their lives. Sometimes my negative run in with religion seems to deter my faith. Perhaps it is not my faith that is deterred but my certainty. My certainty in having an ultimate answer for anything, I do not wish to pretend that I am anyone to be followed.
I do not think I have the answers to life’s questions or the formula for overcoming its challenges. Life is so complex, two of the same scenarios in two different people’s lives are absolutely not the same, and probably do not have the same solution. I am not referring to the common cold or childbirth there are some things that can only be dealt with in a few ways. But matters of our soul effect of differently. Two pregnant women are ready to give birth one has been planning for this baby for years, the name is picked out and the baby’s room is waiting at home. The other pregnant woman is young. A teenager who was not instructed about sex and its cause and effect, she is frightened and ashamed. Her family has not been supportive in fact they have all but shunned her. Thankfully she has found an adoptive family who is ready and waiting. Two pregnancies, but two very different scenarios, we never know what is really going on in another person’s life. I do not even understand what is going on in my own sometimes.
I am not a wandering vagabond who spends my time contemplating life’s great journey. I am living every day trying to accept and overcome the challenges I must face. I did wonder for a long time if after my negative religious encounter if my life was indeed real, if what I was originally sanctioned to do was indeed still relevant. I am still figuring it out. I am learning that not all people are bad or good, that I am neither but yet capable of both. Life is very interesting, and I think I am becoming stronger even though there are days that I feel helpless. I am trying to learn more and feeling as though I understand nothing. I am grateful for the good people, and good things in my life. Challenges will come and go,but I remain. How I remain might be the only thing I have a choice in, and that choice can possibly affect the other aspects of my life. Beforehand my religious beliefs were what dictated my life, my work, my relationships, and every aspect in between. Now that I cannot blame religion for where I am I must go forward not allowing it to dictate any aspect of my life. But faith that seems to be very different from religion, and I think it is a good thing.
Sincerely,
The Prodigal
