“I don’t know how much more I can take.”
I’ve told myself that a million times, as I’m sure you have. We say it in times of desperation, pain and blueness.
But here’s an uncomfortable truth — Sometimes we like feeling this way.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/JRlkTNlLy3w
There’s something about feeling bad for oneself that’s so satisfying. Maybe it’s that on some level you’ve made peace with your seemingly miserable existence.
It helps us get through a bad fight with a loved one, because instead of thinking of what we did to cause the strife it feels better to stew over how unfairly you’re always treated.
If we despise our job it feels so much better to focus the hate on whichever bosses keep criticizing us than it does to take an honest look at where we keep slipping up.
If you hate the results of an election, it’s so much easier to trash the “stupid” voters who picked the other guy than it is to think about how the candidate and supporters like you failed to make a convincing case.
If you don’t like the drivel that comes from the mouth of a misguided minister, it feels so much better to steam over the entire religion than it does to think of better ways to practice your own faith.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Sometimes, we love to feel bad. Pure and simple.
I’m trying to enjoy it less as I get older, because I find that self-pity and misplaced blame is like any other narcotic: You feel good for a few minutes, but then an awful hangover takes hold.
You start to wake up every morning with a cold rock in your belly and an ax swinging inside your skull, chopping brain.
Then you go looking for other shallow comforts to hold it together: A few cigarettes, a few glasses of something intoxicating and as much grease-drenched food as you can swallow.
The hole gets bigger, no matter how hard we try to fill it.
Nothing gets better. it all just gets worse.
That’s my experience, anyway.
I’d rather go the other way.
