Sleepless nights can absolutely ruin your morning, carry on into your day, and make a mess of the following night. Ask me how I know. The trouble is whether your state of restlessness is your own fault or only because your mind will not leave you alone long enough to let you sleep. Sometimes you just feel the need to scream “SHUT UP!”, with the idea that your brain will actually listen. You see, I try not to eat candy as a general rule for health reasons, but I love it, so I keep some LifeSavers floating around in a bag...then only decide to eat one about an hour before I should be sleeping. Wonderful...
I really feel that on occasion our own problems, the things that keep us up at night, or the things that anger us into a state of oblivion are self-inflicted. Maybe this is not how things tend to work for your own process, but I sometimes find myself in a fairly easy-going life pattern, only to discover a subconscious way to make everything a bit more difficult for myself. Occasionally, you can play this to your own advantage though.
When you set a goal to run, take up jogging, biking, or anything else that covers distance, making that situation difficult is easy and great. If you travel in one direction for the sake of exercise, you have no choice but to double the distance because you must return to your starting point again; a great thing. However, if you are like me, you take the hard way around because you like to torture yourself. Example: I wanted to wax my car one day. I own an electric buffer designed for that very thing. Instead of waiting a day to wax said car when I could pick up my buffer after loaning it to my dad, I decided to do it all by hand. Yes, a polishing compound, a cleaner wax, and a sealer wax, all to be done with my arm and a few cloths. Three hours later, I was ready to beat my head onto the trunk lid out of frustration. Five hours later, I was devising a plan to have the car run over me by itself as a way to take me out of the misery that was inflicted by, well,myself.
Perhaps I am alone on this, but I see many of us taking the hard way around in much more serious ways than waxing a car using the old school method over the modern method. Sometimes the end result of taking the more difficult road reveals a better result, but most of the time that outcome should not be expected. Everyone likes to make decisions in the moment and worry over the consequences of making the wrong choices whenever they may arise. Spontaneity is one thing, going out the night of Cinco de Mayo, knowing you have to be awake at dawn for work a few hours later is another thing (I still do not understand why Americans “celebrate”that holiday. Oh, yes, marketing tactics to the gullible; that's right). We do things like this constantly and I cannot at all figure out why.
As time goes on, and we all age in multiple ways, I see us breaking down and becoming weaker as people. We are afraid of each other for the sake of disappointing someone,upsetting them, or angering them. Confrontation is avoided at all costs to the point that we often place it on the back-burner of procrastination. The thing about procrastinating is that it often stays in that open flame until we can no longer resurrect the thought to anything of substance again; ashes. I grew up in a church where if someone was acting like an idiot, disrespectful, or deceiving to other people, nobody said anything unless the person was teetering on the edge of a criminal charge. If you were or are a part of that congregation and happen to be reading this, I will not retract that statement. But in full disclosure, I will tell you that in my experience, being in such an environment for most of my life really skewed my perceptions and actions of composure until I came to my own conclusions of how wrong that scenario really is. This sort of mindset can be common and vastly influencing in any environment, and not just a church setting. Any common, regular gathering of people can be subject to the majority of those involved taking the hard way about decisions when communication is involved.
We often see taking the easy way out of situation as avoiding the issue, turning our back, or trying to forget certain things ever happened. Doing that is damaging, and ultimately taking the hard road if you really put forth the effort into thinking just how much more of a compound issue is created by avoiding uncomfortable situations. We are afraid of honesty now just as we are afraid of showing who we really are to the world instead of the artificial facade we put on to appear as someone “better”than the real person who lives within us. There is a time and a place for everything and we should never go into a situation for the sole purpose of an argument, to stir up a bushel of drama, or to deliberately hurt someone. Yet, knowing in our own minds that somethings need to be dealt with under the proper terms, within the proper situations, and handled as being respectful and honest to anyone involved is a huge part of being a level-headed adult. Our willingness to take the hard step over the hard road shows whether or not we have the honesty and respect to anyone involved inside of any circumstance. Identifying the need for communication is the first step, followed by a course of action that gets everyone involved on the same plane. Real people make this happen, while the weak hide in the corner, trying to forget any form of personal responsibility. Keep your friends close, keep your family closer, and steer clear of the drama and dishonesty in every situation; but you should always take the plunge. I am off to grab a rag and some car polish...
Grace and Peace,
-Drew
Current Song: October Nights –Yellowcard
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic
Email: drewcoustic@gmail.com
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