Misery & Reason

In a world of main character syndrome, being told to "follow your heart," you can be whatever you want to, and that mental health is a problem, also paired with hard work gets you there, you don't have to stand for toxic culture, and your mindset is all about belief... things get so muddy so quickly.

Being the person I am, I often get caught up in simple logic, which along with it's amazing abilities, does a great job of allowing judgement and self-criticism to lodge itself into my subconscious. I always tend to feel a little "less than" and try to convince myself I can do things I cannot, or do things that actively destroy the light inside of me.

I know a lot of you probably don't experience things like I do, but my guess is a lot of you do. Reason and logic are tools that God has given us to break down the world around us, and my mind has done a fantastic job of building those tools up to tear me down.

Even as I write this article, transparently my brain it telling me it's not even needed. My challenges here are ridiculous and I just need discipline. I know that's not the truth. Why? The once happy me lately has been suffering a lot; both because of my situations, but more so because my brain won't shut up about it.

Reason falls under a multitude a different functional areas of our lives, but at it's core, the ability to "reason" is taking logic, feeling, and patterns and making sense out of them. Each one of us has a different way to reason, as in it doesn't look the same to anyone.

The problem typically is that a situation is in front of us, or rather we're in it. Our reason will use past experiences, knowledge, and connect dots to decide what the best move is to make in the current scenario. To use an age old example - the hot stove. You are cooking dinner, take a pot off the stove, the burner is still red hot. Your brain says "well it's hot enough to heat up a pot, if I touch it, I'll feel pain, so to avoid that, let's turn the burner off and wait before touching it." I mean easy enough, we all kind of get that.

Life isn't quite that simple though. It's not always a hot burner. Sometimes it's irrational fear. Sometimes it's crippling anxiety. Sometimes it's depression. Sometimes it's manipulation. This is where our reason becomes flawed. Let's say you're a parent, your kid is asking for bike... but you read that a bunch of kids last year died from bike accidents, you want to be there to help pick out your kid's bike, and you want to make sure you have the money to buy it. Suddenly reason kicks in - "there's a pattern of death and a ton of work, the kid shouldn't get a bike." Oh wait... that makes sense... but it also doesn't. Guess this particular reasoning system didn't consider some things; bike choices are limited, making it easy, bike's are expensive but nothing you couldn't save up for, and the percentage of kids having incidents on bike's it's so low that it's negligible.

Then there's also people with issues like me... and socializing with people. I've had a history of saying things I shouldn't, being awkward, getting flustered on calls, and people misunderstanding me. That history creates a pattern in my mind; socializing is a risk with multiple negative outcomes. However, my reason also says other things; socialization is a skill, it'll get better with more practice, no one actually cares about that stuff, and any weirdness you portray doesn't matter in the grand scope of life. In addition, an extra does of logic says "well look at everyone around you... the pattern is that conversation is easy, so it should be easy for you." Yet... those conflicting thoughts go far away from the anxiety, fear, and often external pressure to socialize. I often avoid or minimalize interaction with others. Now my reasoning is conflicted. What am I to do?

Notice something particular about that last paragraph; I left out "feeling" from my reasoning system there. It was AFTER reason that feeling came in.

Thus created misery in my head as I continue on. I use my social issues as a way to show you something here, so stick with me here through it. What is misery? Well that's a tough one, so let's go back to the definition first; a state or a feeling of great distress or discomfort of the mind or body. "Feeling" is right in the definition. So thus you ask yourself naturally - "how do I get rid of misery?"

There are many options from a logical standpoint in my mind. If it's uncomfortable, you can lean into it until it becomes comfortable. If you are distressed, you should make a change to get out of it. It might just be a mindset thing, as in I tell myself "I don't like this and it's dumb" so I don't do it, therefore if I tell myself a different story, it'll change. Often misery isn't permanent, so it's a challenge or a trial I must pass in order to learn and gain wisdom and knowledge. I am naturally making it worse, so if I just push through it, I'll be fine.

Then after all that reasoning there, I end up no matter what I do, still in misery. I put myself out there for months - I schedule tons and tons of meetings, I start talking to anyone everywhere we go, and I routinely practice socializing with others. I tell myself "this is easy, it's all in your head" and "you can do this because you know deep down you want connection" and all the positive affirmations and mindsets, and I actually get to the point where I believe it. Despite all logic, despite all reasoning, despite all the belief, practice, and training - misery still accompanies me. I find myself still being anxious. I find myself still dreading the next meeting. I find myself struggling very hard with small talk, despite having been trying, editing the way I think, and genuinely believing and attempting I could change... and I didn't.

Misery is a "state or a feeling." Feeling is emotional, it doesn't stand for simple logic. While reason may take into consideration feeling, feeling stands wholly independent from the part of your brain that's logically. Let's say love for example, it's the greatest explanation for all of this. You may have a partner, that by all standards is top tier marriage material. They care for you, they make good money, they are really happy with their life, they believe all the same things you do, y'all have the exact same moral set and future goals, and to top it off... they are pretty good looking too. Yet... there's something missing. Despite all of that, you feel empty. You look at this person and there's just a sense of happiness, but not of love. You are not at peace. Something isn't working there... and your heart and brain know it. You'll start to feel irritated. You'll feel a sense of displacement. You're mind will say "you aren't at peace, you're not happy here, time to go" and yet your sense of logic will scream at you - "By all recognitions, patterns, desires, and physical appearance, this person is PERFECT!"

Then enters judgement. Judgement says - "This person is perfect. It's you. You're the problem. You should feel bad, and you should stay here." What will others think if you leave this person? How much will it hurt when you leave? How much will it hurt them? What's the cost of staying vs leaving? I highly the word "should" because words like that represent judgement. It's how you identify it.

Hold up now a second... where did judgement come in? Well, he is an opportunistic sneaky weasel. What he tends to do is rely on logic and reasoning to denounce the way you feel. He wants you to ONLY rely on logic, nothing else. Screw the way you feel, you can change that. You can't change patterns, recognition, and facts.

Except hold up a second friend. No, don't "screw the way you feel" - you were built with emotions to signal you of what you're experiencing. They tend to go far deeper than logic - think of emotions like this; I believe we have a soul (if you don't believe that, well then I don't know what to tell you... follow along and maybe get the idea), and our souls our unique from one another. We have natural tendencies, talents, loves, fears, and all that jazz. Emotions connect your soul to your mind, because they are not the same. Part of the same being, but actually far removed from one another. Emotions connect that gap, feeding information from the soul to the mind. If you're angry, it's a signal that you're soul is in distress. If you're sad, it's a signal that your soul is missing something. If you're happy, then it's a signal that your soul is at peace.

I know... clever. Reverse the title of article. The problem I experience most often is the flow between these things. It's basically your soul, heart, mind, and body all kind of feeding one another. Honestly though, it should go in that order. What often happens to me is mind, body, heart, and soul. So everything is first filtered by logic and reasoning, and I should take action on that and then analyze the way it makes me feel, and understand what part of me this is filling up. There's a problem with this though; I don't actually fill the right parts.

With logic and reasoning first, I often encounter this... I'll call it "reality based" objective view to what I do and what's happening in my life. It's a situation first, and I must analyze it as such to decide on an action. Here's the problem with that though... life doesn't often work that way. I've been, for far too long, putting off my passions, my interests, and my dedication to my faith and family in place of situations. There's stuff sure that should be priority; if your car breaks down on the highway in the middle of nowhere, it's not the time to play guitar. However, what often happens is that I'll be working, and things will change. I must adapt to said changes, often despite the way I feel. I'll end up in toxic job situations, unfulfilling roles, and just feel sick to my stomach all the time... but no, my brain says. You make good money and you're doing it for the family. Misery be damned, it's part of your life now.

However... it doesn't have to be. Often most of us have a sense or desire to help others, and that's a noble cause and in my opinion it's built into our DNA, but conditioned out of us by society, and the focus on ourselves. Much like anything in life though, the answer actually lies in between.

If you're going to help others, flourish, produce fruits that others enjoy and have peace in your life, that does in fact start with you. Not in a sense that you are some important and large part of the world, or even that you are meant to do something meaningful, but rather that you must be at peace before it flows out into others. I think of it in terms of light; if you are going to be a light in a dark room, then you first need to be lit up. Otherwise, you're just a dark object no ones sees just like all the other things in the room. When you focus on lighting yourself up, filling yourself up with fuel to burn, then you produce light, which not only puts you in focus, but it reveals what's in the darkness, both good and bad, and the great thing about it all... is that it most often just happens naturally. If you skip that whole part about filling yourself up first and lighting up and just try to skip to the "good parts," then you ended up blindly going into a dark room, bumping into things, hurting people while you swing wildly, and have no clue where you're going.

This leads me back to my original order of things. If you are to light yourself up, that means feeding that part of your soul that puts you at peace, by following your emotions to understand what it needs. Your mind is the logic and reason that gets you there. It's not the focus, it's the tool. If you're piecing together a box with screws, you don't spend a whole bunch of time figuring out every detail about the screwdriver do you? No, it's pretty straight forward. Maybe you're using a power saw though and you need to learn a little more about it and the safety of it. Still, in either case, our reasoning and logic are there to serve the inner part of us that need it. Our soul and emotions just feel. Our mind and body produce. If they're acting independently or you're not using the right tool for the job, then you only create misery for yourself.

We often view our mind and reasoning as the "end all be all" because life is a formula, and really it's not. All of our experiences differ. The formula doesn't exist. Each one of us make our own formula.

That's not what society says though. Society says your unique and important. Society says the way you feel and what you do is your goal in life. Focus on yourself. Accept yourself. Society gave you systems to settle into. Sounds good on paper... but it develops into strange things as you grow into adulthood.

As a kid and teen, yeah, the world revolves around you constantly. School, teachers, parents, grandparents, friends, etc. - they all end up catering to you. You follow whatever makes you happy, despite reasoning and logic. It's the complete opposite of what we talked about. Then... you grow into an adult and you're in the real world. No one gives a rat's crap about you. It's hard. Everything works against you. Suddenly, the last 18-20 of your life make no sense at all. Your average young adult, whether knowingly or unknowingly, starts to doom scroll on social media. They search for ways out. They search for answers. And they are all fed a load of crap. Not that you can't get good out of it, but most of us only see those rich folks, those happy folks, or we see all the misery, pain, and war in the world. Polar extremes, and we think "well I've got to exist somewhere."

We all want to blame the government, the devil, technology, or our food or something wild like that... but it's not. It's us. As a society. We hop on social media and see these what seem to be large movements of justice and belonging, and we want to fit in and jump on the bandwagon. We see all these posts about being yourself, living your best life, and following your passions, so you neglect all your real world responsibilities to live that way. You see hate, division, and opinions, so you jump into the fight thinking you can do the right thing, and spend loads of time not on life. You see motivational videos that kick you in butt. You see all these posts about the 100,000 mental disorders and all their subcategories until you relate to some of them. And when all of that doesn't work, you fade into depression, sadness, and dissociation. In that pit of misery, you begin to search for something. A spark, a faith, a glimmer of hope... only to restart this same cycle, over and over again.

What we tend to see in our current society, social media or not, are the results, not the journey. We tend to see what's in the spotlight, not what's in the sidelines. There's a good chunk of us out here just trying to live our best lives, quiet and peaceful and it just never seems like we can.

Thus we develop in our brains a sense of reasoning, patterns, and things that work against us. We must be miserable working a 9-5 to make good money. We must take on more work to be successful. We must be part of a movement or we're against it. Don't even get me started on the "hustle more" crowd.

If you're searching for an answer, it's simple; what you're actually looking for a craving for is peace and truth.

Society often says we live "our truth" - but that doesn't make sense to me. If there's a car in front of me, someone can't say "my truth is that this is a camel" when it's clearly a Honda Civic. Says right there on the trunk. The truth is often uncomfortable, yes, but the truth is what we intend to strive for. The farther away we get from truth, the more we start living a lie, not in society, but in our own heads. This leads us to creating "identities" which society tells us is good. You are the fast car guy. You are the rainbow hair person. You are the "blue collar" worker. However, I've found that identities are not truth... they are in fact disguises. Why? Because if you identify with anything that isn't permanent, or anything at all really isn't physically or exists in this world, you become that thing. If you suddenly can't afford the fast cars, you are now broken. Instead of just being a person interested in fast cars with a passion you can't pursue right now, you become a broken person because you're identity has been attacked, and is now gone. Why does that happen though? Because underneath all your identities is you; and the identities just cover it up. You likely have trauma, unhealed hurts, or disgust for yourself, so you created identities to get away from that instead of facing it.

Peace... what does society tell you about peace? It says money will give you peace. Identity will give you peace. Success will give you peace. The "American Dream" will give you peace. Religion will give you peace. Sex, love, drugs, partners, music, etc. - you name it. Peace isn't something you earn or gain, it's something you find. No matter what you chase on this planet, in this life, nothing will "give" you peace. Peace is what I consider the ultimate form of "success" that will look different for everyone. For you, it's becoming that light. The brighter you shine, the more peace you'll have, because remember that analogy of "filling yourself with fuel?" If you put maple syrup instead of something flammable, then all you did was make your light heavier, and until you ditch the syrup, clean the container, and put flammable materials in there, you won't have light. What makes each of us light up is different. Maybe running a business, employing people, and delivering your passion product is what lights you up. The more you do it, the more peace you'll have. Maybe all you want is to raise kids, be a good parent, and spend time with friends, because that lights you up, and thus you feed yourself and have peace.

Lastly here, don't mistake peace for comfort. Society often tells you that peace is when everything is good and dandy, and life is perfect. Life is never perfect. Every day will bring new struggles. Events will cause you pain. You will gain and lose faith. Your sanity will be challenged. Peace is going through all of that with a panicked mind, and a steady soul. You feel that struggle, but you also feel at home and know it's all going to be okay. There are things out there that will not bring you peace, and you'll recognize them by the sheer inability to feel okay.

You know, a lot of times I write articles like this not solely to help you... but also as a way for me to align my own thoughts. My head is a mess. It always has been, and likely always will be. The more I can pull stuff out of it, slap it somewhere physical, the more it empties out a little bit and makes me feel like 1% better.

In essence, a lot of these articles are my journey. Not my end state. Not my beginning. Rather it's me in the midst of a lot, and it's a way for me to express myself and my current struggles that often folks don't understand, because my head makes life incredibly difficult compared to others. So you'll probably notice over time, but observations, opinions, and insight develop and change. It's not intentional or a strategy or anything, it's just me posting my thoughts at the time.

I was for a very long time kind of brainwashed by society... that everything boils down to a reason, and that reason should drive me, whether it makes me miserable or not, or I agree with it or not. Time and time again, I find myself justifying my misery. That's what I was trying to get across; we don't need to do that.

Our reasoning and logic is a toolset we should use to bring ourselves to belief, faith, and peace. What goes into you, is eventually what comes out. If you have things that make you miserable and drain you, then "positive" things don't come out of you. We, mostly talking about millennials, since we're guilty of it, but it's not specifically us, really need to redefine the way we live our lives for peace, and not for whatever the world wants us to do. Society does affect us, but it shouldn't change our search for peace and simplicity for misery and money.

Anyway, hope I gave you a different perspective.