Sarah Nyhan

I was around someone who talked in extreme language about unloading all the bullets they owned until there were a pile of bodies in their driveway.

Purportedly over political ideologies?

Hating others perspectives so much?

I was certainly taken aback. Felt very uncomfortable.

There has to be something else, something more going on. In my opinion.

Unhappiness. But it’s easier to project decades of anger onto someone who can take it. Versus when the object of your desire is the one also making you so mad.

The dissonance. What you’re seeing, what you’re hearing is the dissonance in literally millions of people. Who were sold a life and lies for years that they are realizing they can’t now cash out on. They invested everything and now the bank is empty. And there’s nobody around to even get mad at, to even be held responsible for the mess they’re in.

I feel sad for you, for them. To live a whole life thinking one things. I mean, putting everything you have towards those one things. Just to realize it was all for naught. Or even worse, put you farther behind than when you stared.

I can relate. Everything, all I had towards a world view I was born into. All to realize it was nothing. That most of it was untrue. I mean I went all the way. I gave up literally everything and everyone. All to find out after decades that almost none of it was true. And most of it was unnecessary.

That’s brutal. Being able to see the carnage. So painful. Being so intensely aware of how much I missed out on. And what I’ll never be able to get back. Not even with all the money and resources in the world.

Time is that one thing we need. That we can never get back.

It’s clear as day that you’re not happy. That you are bitterly seething. For mostly good reasons.

Until you keep trying to get happiness from the people who are the ones playing the biggest parts in your unhappiness.

The key isn’t murdering everyone else who appears to have what you want. In ways.

The key isn’t gunning down people who you can’t escape encountering who seem happier than you. Who seem to have the love, community, and support you aren’t crazy for wanting for yourself.

They’re just a constant reminder that no matter how much you try to build a massive defense wall of logical hoops to distract you, if it’s possible for them then that means it’s also possible for you.

You just gotta quit trying to get good water out of a poisoned stream.

You have to take the responsibility to be honest with yourself. Maybe for once.

And seriously identify what you really want.

And acknowledge what you really wanted this whole time.

Even if you abandoned yourself along the way by trying to deny it more and more.

It’s like the bandaid you refuse to rip off. All your defensiveness. It’s not like others can’t already see. You’re not even successfully fooling yourself anymore.

We need false hope to move us forward sometimes. I think God allows it. Especially if desperate times call for desperate measures.

But then we get strong enough to leave that crutch behind. It doesn’t mean you were weak. It means you were a human that was suffering.

When you’re overpowered that doesn’t mean you are weak. Usually it’s probably the opposite – that you are too strong – so strong that you won’t give yourself permission to step out from under something or someone that is unfairly applying so much pressure that it will eventually kill you. Or parts of you off.

I believe that once you are strong enough, once the immediate threats have tapered off, the entire Universe is completely for your healing. In that even if you give up on yourself, the ENTIRE Universe is programmed to nonstop push you forward towards what you might not even admit anymore is what you really want.

The situation you are trying to settle for is NEVER going to get better.

I’m pretty confident in saying that as a Universal Law and Truth. From my lifetime of experience.

I don’t think you are the exception.

I don’t think you denying your heart, you denying what you really want is going to be rewarded. Or encouraged long term.

This is Adam getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Not over a petty rule about apples. But so that he wouldn’t get stuck in destructive thinking.

Look around. You have more than you need. But it’s still not enough. Why? Because you’ve been barking up the wrong tree.

It might be fine for others. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you to want more. Or another.

We try to externalize the work we need to do inside. We think the only option is outsourcing self-care.

For me at least because I was never encouraged to put myself first. Even in a responsibility sense. Family and church taught me in no uncertain terms that what I wanted didn’t matter. Oh and then corporate American came along and sealed the deal. For so many years.

There wasn’t a framework to resist. I wasn’t strong enough.

But now I am. Now I am able to make different decisions. Now I am painfully able to see what I missed out on.

You can’t dial back awareness. Not for all the downers in the world. Not for all the television. Not for all the movies. Not for all the doom scrolling. Not for all the other ultimately empty distractions.

You don’t get a pass from healing just because of how long it took for you to be strong enough to see the truth.

I thought God would at least let me have my most sacred cows. I thought for sure God wouldn’t take everything away from me. I mean I had some really good ones. I thought. I didn’t want to give up those I held so dear. The ones that I thought had been enough for so so many years.

People grow. People change.

If you can zoom out from your broken heart, and trust everything works for you, then there’s room to ask what else could be going on. Besides just a whole people group you think you need to exterminate in order to feel some sense of control over the floor slipping out from under you in all the ways you are resisting facing full on.

The problem isn’t out there. It really isn’t.

But even if it was, even if it is, all you have control over is what’s in front of you. Right in front of you. Realistically.

Unless you’re really married to the drama. To forcing everyone else to change before you fix your shit.

Good luck with that. Keep wishing, I guess. Maybe so.

But that’s not where I’m putting my hope. On everyone else changing enough for my happiness to be impacted. That might be ideal, but I think it’s nearly 100% improbable.

Are you that much of a gambler?
To what extent?
For how long?
You’re willing to wager the rest of your life?
ALL your future possible happiness?
Waiting for others?
Putting everything you want on them?

Instead of playing the cards you were dealt?

Good luck changing the game at this point. If that’s your whole plan.

I’m not saying you’re wrong for wanting people to behave differently. I’m just saying how has that worked for you thus far?

And is murdering others the answer? Is murdering others who seem happier than you really going to get you what you want?

Or is that the language of someone so angry? So resisting the grieving they’ve avoided all this time?

I can think of two guys. Who even killed their abusers. After the fallout of it all, even though they’re physically free from being locked up, they wouldn’t recommend it. The relief paled in the comparison to the internal consequences. Now they carry a heaviness they’ll never be able to shake or escape. Their responses were understandable but not the ultimate answer. What they really needed and wanted still didn’t manifest after they eliminated the people who they hated – even if for very good reasons.

We have this fantasy that one day people will change. One day we will be rescued. Outside sources will validate us. Give us permission to move on. Provide us with a guaranteed cushion to fall onto once we make the leap. Once we let go of what is killing us.

I don’t think life works like that. Where you stepping into all you’re more than invited to be is being gatekept by others. No, you are divine as a child of God. Your inheritance of divinity is the insistence that you step into the Creativity constantly waiting to burst forth from and for you.

The best service you can be to anyone and everyone is not to dial down what you want. Not to settle. But to step fully into who you are and could be. If you’d only admit to yourself what you really want.

Who told you that was wrong?
Who told you wanted too much?

Who told you to be “realistic”?
Maybe those that benefited from you not moving on beyond them?
So they could keep using you?
Why would they encourage you to stop making life comfortable for them?
So they don’t have to face their own shit also?

The enemy isn’t out THERE. It’s not in demons. Or policies. As they may be. They’re only effective with your complicity. Even as they aren’t the point. Bigger fish to fry.

First step: stop sleeping with the real enemy right at home.

This doesn’t mean annihilate another human being. They get to live their lives just as well as you. This isn’t about “good” versus “bad”. That’s the trap that will keep you stuck. Has been.

No, this is just about being honest and courageous enough to admit to yourself whether you want more. Or different. Step one.

And then deciding what more joy and happiness might look like for you. And whether it’s been time for you to go get it. To create a life you feel like waking up to.

There were days when I was so in love with parts of my life that sleep was an annoyance. Where I couldn’t stand having to take a break.

How do we get that back again?

Hard work. Not in terms of glorifying suffering. Nope. Pretty sure that hasn’t worked well enough for most of us thus far.

What I mean by hard work is traversing the great sea of grief between how we thought things were and now how we see they really be.

It doesn’t get easier. Each day that goes by adds to the difficulty in facing all that sadness and anger. All that disbelief.

We don’t get a pass just for how dedicated we were to the cause. It doesn’t work like that.

What will get you through, what will be the hope that keeps you afloat is a bigger why. You need an answer for all the suffering. For all the work. There has to be some legitimate purpose. Versus a world completely taken over by the “bad guys”.

I’m hesitant to share my thoughts in that regard. I don’t think such a big question is able to be even well-intentionally siphoned off another. Because I believe the answers to those questions are everything. Are the foundation and bedrock of moving forward in anything. Even the most mundane. Even replacing the roll of toilet paper in the restroom. Even washing the dishes. Pruning the bushes. Etc.

You have to wrestle with figuring out if you matter. If what you want is important enough. If your desires are valuable and worthy.

I can tell you I’m pretty sure the answer is 100% yes for me. I feel comfortable planting that seed of discontentment in you.

But just like the butterfly can’t soar to survive without building strength expressly through wrestling free, from the cocoon that initially was her comfort and safety – that has now become a cage, I gotta let you do the rest of this fight on your own.

All I can do of anymore significance is show you it’s possible. And worth it. That this isn’t just stupid dreams. That we can give ourselves permission to want and even expect more.

That giving other people so much power to determine our happiness is a complete waste of time. That the real answer is so much better.

And it’s been about damn time. I’ll definitely agree with you on that.

Tick tock.