i had everything i thought i wanted.
i bought and lived in a big house, held a well-paying job
in a perceived lucrative industry, lived close to friends,
just ended a short pro-football career,
drove a nice Audi sports car, watched every tv show,
movies whenever i wanted, big screen, and i could go on
trips to Iceland and Costa Rica.
as suns and seasons passed, i felt a growing, nagging sense
of frustration, isolation, disconnectedness, despair, and dysfunction.
as i felt more of these unpleasant emotions,
i would gravitate toward whatever would provide
quick resolution, such as a drink, tv show, movie,
an upcoming trip, or as simple as mindlessly scrolling
through my phone to avoid the stark reality
plaguing my bleak moment-to-moment existence.
i constantly made complaints about my situation,
such as not being healthy or sleeping well, not being where
i wanted to be in the world, not enjoying how i’m spending my time
and wondering how i should be somewhere else, somewhere
bigger to meet new people, a different life experience,
having spent most of my time around the same group,
who were great, but it felt stagnant.
i wanted more, but i wasn’t willing to change my strategy.
i soon discovered a growing sense of disconnection
between what i wanted, what i was doing, and
how my environment either helped me achieve
what i wanted for myself, or didn’t.
i also often complained about other people, their problems,
their lack of interest or support in my ambition, goals,
as well as things i didn’t have, such as enough money to support
the things i had, which clearly weren’t enough, as well as
my desire to move somewhere else, be something else,
to be what i always thought i could be.
the problem always existed outside of me, instead of
looking at myself and what i could do to be more
aligned with what i truly wanted.
but i didn’t really know what i wanted, and my
decisions were often rapidly rash, changing my mind
often because it never felt right.
despite how chaotic it looked from the outside,
with every decision, i learned more about what
i wanted, what i didn’t want. i quit my well-paying job and
went back to school where i remembered how well i could
do in school, where i remembered about the impact
i want to have and can have, given the right pursuit.
with a simple shift, i began to remember who i was.
then i was accepted into medical school, which brought
instant elation, though soon after i realized there was
still a disconnection between what i wanted, what i believed,
and what i would be learning.
i pushed off enrolling due to this doubt, which many people
thought was crazy and confusing, as did i, constantly
feeling a sense of regret about not having trusted
the ability to take a path so many would pounce at the
opportunity to take.
doubt was a signal too. i trusted it, and i pushed off
taking the common path out of fear i missed whatever it was
that was most aligned to what i truly wanted for myself,
as i slowly came into awareness of what that was:
internal peace.
i wasn’t at peace, which was difficult for me to understand,
meaning i was reaching for things to fix the massive void
within which made the situation temporarily
manageable, which only exacerbated the problem, as the
real problem never resolved because i had an excuse
not to fix it.
why would i want to solve a much more difficult pain
when i could push it off with a quick fix right then?
except the pain only worsened, and i needed greater
stimulation to ignore the growing void.
this strategy only caused greater blindness, as i would
go out of my way to protect what i held most dear to my heart,
out of fear beyond that departure i would never survive,
though it only further removed me from being able to
instill the peace i never knew i wanted, or could have,
which only caused greater dependency
on those outside things, greater lack of peace.
over time, i realized i needed to take accountability
for my own actions, such as the role my behavior had
in this current state, like drinking, running a business
i didn’t really want to run, living with someone who i knew
wasn’t a good fit for me, all of which were external sources
of immediate comfort, despite the lack of peace behind it,
caused by internal depletion and disconnection.
as i rid myself of those dependencies, i found clarity
around what i desired, which meant i knew more about
myself as a person, and how i would make decisions
based on immediate, logical solutions rather than what
would provide internal peace i subconsciously sought.
when i found clarity, i found greater confidence making decisions,
a difference in taste, inclinations, desires, and reasons
for choosing one thing over another. i realized that
the more stimulation i surrounded myself with, the cloudier
my vision was, as in i was distracted by the energy associated
external sources of stimulation. i had to pay attention,
energy directed outward, to those things, therefore making decisions
based on their energy input, external influence,
instead of being able to discern what my heart told me.
as i shed layers of external stimulation, i discovered
greater internal stimulation, renewal of internal peace,
a reminder of who i am, what makes me me, which
i barely knew being constantly over-stimulated,
requiring over-stimulation to even feel alive,
where i could soon detect how external joys stripped
me of internal remembrance, peace, and joy,
therefore being isolated in the sense where my peace
came from within, my guiding light,
requiring nothing but my own heart beat
to feed me the peace i always sought.
i walk now not to be stimulated by delicious things
modernity provides, which only previously held me
in more isolation and disconnection than i’ve ever felt,
despite the superficial connection it claims to provide,
so that internal peace may always be the sole deciding
factor and experience i wish to instill within.
having lived so long in disconnection, i didn’t know
what true connection felt like. now, being connected,
understanding what it feels like to know true peace,
going back would seem like a rebellion against
all things that are good. as I seek my own peace,
i now find a renewed, profound connection to
things around me, attuned to love, instead of an external
conversation we usually cling to prevent ourselves from
going into places we don’t want to go, our own heart.
——————————
pain is associated with every decision, whether it
comes on the forefront or the backend:
the pain of regretting having not listened to your heart,
taking immediate stimulation for backend depletion,
or the pain of making a difficult decision trusting
something you cannot see, hiding deep within external
stimulation, which doesn’t feel right in the moment,
but leads to everlasting peace and independent joy.
in every moment, we have a critical decision to make,
about where we spend our time, how we spend our time,
what we use to instill whatever sense of peace we
seek, who we spend our time with.
in this world that provides so much immediate stimulation,
may the peace we seek be sought from within, and
may we live in honesty, speak our honesty, an immediate
pain, that could only ever bring everlasting joy.
may we shift our reach from external problems & solutions
to internal resolution, where every decision is solely
focused on instilling peace within,
which changes your life,
therefore changes the world.
thanks for reading. i hope you find this meaningful to your life.
please let me know if there is a different topic you’d like me to share.
in love,
david
