Think it through


It's amazing how happiness and difficulty, fear and faith, can coexist. The presence of one does not necessarily exclude the presence of the other, but the power lies in what we choose to focus on.

Good things make us happy. Bad things make us sad. I'm going to take a huge gander here and assume this is how you operate. And I think if we chose to view life through this lens strictly, we would be very volatile. And I think we are very volatile. We sway with every wind. Sink with every storm. Doubt with every uncertainty. Run with every trend. We only stand up for things when we're in a multitude and we sacrifice our consciences everyday to stay comfortable. Don't feel offended... I belong to this category strongly as well. And recently, it's felt like for every step forward I've made, I've also made one step back. And when we follow this rule of good equals happy and bad equals sad, we're in a constant state of change, never really settling or having a moment of peace. To make matters worse, when good things happen, we begin to anticipate the bad. And sometimes, but not as often, when bad things happen, we anticipate the good. The latter isn't really bad if you're faith is being placed in the right things and people. The former however is a peace destroyer.

As I've been dealing with this dance between good and stressful news, I've come to a profound conclusion - I don't want to be that volatile. I don't want everything that goes bad or even everything that goes good to have such aa big influence on my state of mind. Not because I don't want to be present and invested in the things I do or anything. But because ultimately, there is very little I can control. Allowing myself to get swept up in my emotions (after allowing myself to experience them, of course) means that in hard times, I'm distracted and discouraged and in good times, I am distracted and encouraged. Ultimately, without putting my foot down and deciding what I want for myself, I will continue to be distracted; focusing on all the wrong things and allowing circumstances to dictate my sanity. And that just seems insane. Crazy things happen everyday. Crazy things HAVE been happening everyday. And I'm coming to understand that while emotions are a powerful force that can unite people from different walks of life, it is just as capable of leading us to rash decisions. In our need to feel in control, we do things that set us back. In our need to feel cool, we say hurtful and callous things that crush people's spirits. In our need to feel carefree, we stuff our bodies to the brim with things that can never truly take away the pain or the worry. In our need to feel loved, we chase after likes and relationships that are surface level. In our need to be seen, we would do anything and everything. In our despair and rage, we hurt ourselves and others. In our insecurity, we self-sabotage. In our success, we underappreciate others and become proud. I'm learning to feel my emotions, but not necessarily bring them to the decision making table. And as I've gotten to the point in my life where my decisions are of a more serious nature, I find it more and more important to think things through, and that can't always be done in the heat of your emotions. So feel the heat... just don't make your decisions there.


Emotional unavailablilty is a real issue and that's not what I'm endorsing. It's important to be able to feel and show compassion and excitement and love and anger. I really think these are the things that connect us as people and help us to love each other even when we haven't personally experienced each other's pains. All I'm saying is.... think things through. Cry, rage, think through all the things and all the emotions they solicit. But then take a step away. Take a deep breath and look at it again. What are you going to do? And maybe more importantly, why? You may have things and people depending on you, but I think you ultimately owe it to yourself to make level-headed decisions.

God bless

Dera

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