Tag: trust

  • The Reciprocation of Trust

    The strange irony of not being able to trust others is that it inherently makes you untrustworthy. If we just set aside our egos for a minute, we’ll quickly realise that trusting others is not a reflection of their integrity, but is in fact a reflection of our sincerity, or lack thereof. I think it goes something like this. We start the cycle by reaching out and wanting to trust another. They recoil at the thought of the burden that such a trust imposes on them because they doubt their ability to live up to the expectations that accompanies such trust. We see this as rejection, and recoil as well. So the next time someone reaches out to us to trust, we recoil at the recollection of that previous betrayal from another because we need to protect ourselves from such rejection again, leaving the one reaching out with the distinct impression that they were just rejected. They repeat the cycle in their little world of influence, and before you know it, everyone is recoiling from everyone else and the world becomes a shitty place.

    The cycle can’t be wished away. We can’t sit idle expecting others to trust us if we’re not willing to reciprocate that trust. I’ve seen the deflection a million times or more. People hiding behind the fact that no one understands their reality so it’s all just flowery language no matter how sincere the advice or the gesture to connect or support. Strange how once again, through such a detrimental self-image, we architect our own demise with those around us. We sit bitterly complaining to the world through our inaction and disengagement waiting for someone to magically lift us out of our doldrums because that’s what our fairy tale upbringing has taught us. But we slip further into despair when we reject every extended hand because it didn’t come in the right shape, size, colour, or packaging that we wanted.

    It reminds me of the parable of the man that complained to God that he was not being rescued by God in his moment of tribulation, after he rejected every hand that was extended to facilitate his rescue. He wanted to see the hand of God extended, but refused to accept that it was extended through others. The point is, we’re so full of crap most of the time that we judge the extended hand because the body that extends it does not meet our fairy tale perceptions of what it should look like. It’s no different to the denial of answers from others even when we don’t have the answers ourselves.

    The hypocrisy of it all erodes our self-worth in ways we only realise when we find ourselves face down in the dirt suddenly yearning for the most feeble of extended hands that we previously rejected, because at that point any hand will do. But our egos prevent us from recognising this slide into despondency because throughout that process we’re busy protecting ourselves from the reality of our fears. Funny how it all starts with the simple act of trusting, but so quickly slides into a cess pool of self-imposed depression because we failed to recognise our insincerity while blaming others for their apparent dishonesty.

    (This is an incomplete thought process…and this new editor in WP sucks!)

  • From Disappointment, to Despondence, to Depression

    I saw a meme this week that suggested that the reason a baby cries at the time of birth is because that experience is the worst experience of its life. It seemed like just an interesting observation at first, but later I realised that it spoke volumes about perception and reality. Several incidents since then, including the passing of Robin Williams prompted me to revisit many aspects of how poorly we define our own realities.

    At times in my life when I was riding the crest of the wave, I found myself mildly annoyed by the actions of others that did not meet my expectations. It was easy enough to shrug off because I had enough else happening in my life that made me feel accomplished and relevant. So I would ignore it and instead polarise towards those groups or activities that bred positivity in my life. After some time, the trend of being disappointed by the actions of significant others seemed to grow, and given a few stumblings of my own, I found those disappointments weighing down on me much heavier than before. Suddenly I didn’t have the abundance of good vibes from the crest of the wave to keep me grounded in positivity, and so I slipped from being easy going, to being disappointed.

    That disappointment grew as my reality continued to throw curve balls at me. I started wondering where did I make a wrong turn. When did the wave throw me over so that I would find myself crashing into its trough? Blaming myself for my slide didn’t help much, and soon enough I found that the disappointment started turning into despondency and a deeply ingrained sense of sadness. That sadness lingered longer than the brief smiles I would muster. But I still found myself questioning myself. I questioned my worth to those around me who kept disappointing me, and I questioned my competence to make the right decisions to break this cycle that I found myself in, but all I ended up with were questions and no answers.

    I kept doing what I thought was the right thing, but I found myself challenged to uphold the principles that I subscribed to. The more I tried to live a principled life, the more I found people in my life demanding a response from me that would force me to choose. Be true to my principles and values, or succumb to their pressure so that I would feel included? Inclusion was another evasive aspect of my life. Perhaps that is why I find it so easy to dismiss the negativity associated with being the odd one out. So I chose to be principled, and despite being true to myself, the disappointing reaction I got from those that were encouraging me to throw caution to the wind and live a little weighed down on me even more. And so I continued to question myself, even though I couldn’t find enough reason to abandon my principles.

    So the slide into despondency continued. I looked at the pitfalls of the lives of those around me, the emptiness, the trinkets, the lies, and most of all the insincerity. All it did was make me more adamant to hold on to what I chose for myself even though holding on grew more difficult by the day. There were endless cycles of insincere ones coming into my life, celebrating my resolve, embracing my principles and me along with it, and then drifting away when the burden of commitment to our shared ideals became too burdensome for them. The moment it meant reducing their popularity with the social circles that they aspired to be a part of, they abandoned those principles because affirmation was more important. Being insincere didn’t bother them, because the people they aspired to be like were equally insincere, which made it acceptable.

    I didn’t want that for myself, and so I continued to search each time for someone that appeared sincere in their conviction to subscribe to that which I subscribed to. But the cycle ended in disappointment each time, and each time I found myself contemplating the hopelessness of it all more seriously than the last. The hopelessness quickly grew into depression until I was diagnosed as being depressed and placed on medication to help me out of what was assumed to be a clinical condition that I had acquired.

    The medication didn’t help. If anything, it made me feel numb. I didn’t want to feel numb. At least in the disappointment and the depression there was still a sense of purpose and passion. Even though that purpose and passion didn’t always bring me joy, it still gave me a reason to want to prevail. But now all I felt was numbness. My jaw tightened, but my senses dulled. I was easier for people to tolerate, but my contempt for what I saw outside of me started being redirected internally. I didn’t like the state I found myself in. I didn’t like the lack of passion or purpose that I felt, and the entire situation was unnatural. I was not me anymore, and I hated it. So I stopped. I weaned myself off my medication, visited my psychiatrist once again, and he confirmed that it was the quickest recovery he had ever seen. His praise fell on deaf ears.

    I soon realised that the medication didn’t alter what I despised in those around me. Nor did it give me reason to change my conviction about right and wrong. With or without the medication, my reality remained my reality. The only difference was, with the medication I was numb and unable to respond to it effectively, while without it I was forced to deal with the full impact of it. I chose the latter because I knew that inaction and passivity, as was my perpetual state with the medication, was not a life to be lived. It was merely an existence that made me more tolerable for others, and made others less annoying for me. At best, it was a distraction, but at worst, it was a nightmare, with me standing on the outside looking in. Those moments when I tried to scream and no sound came out. It reminded me of those dreams when I saw myself trying to drive a car that I had no control over. The lights would go out, the brakes would fail, the steering would be unresponsive, and I would end up lying upside down with the car on its roof, entirely unable to influence the outcome, and my scream remained a silent scream. That was what the medication did to me. At least without it, I could scream. I could beat my chest and curse the world. I was not powerless. And that’s when it hit me.

    My diagnosis of depression had nothing to do with a clinical state that I had acquired. Instead, my clinical state was in fact a result of my reality. My depression was my way of expressing my dissatisfaction with the world, and those that I held to be significant in my life. The more they didn’t react, the more I expressed, until eventually I forgot why I chose to express myself that way.  They stopped caring enough to even attempt to understand, and all I was left with was the reality that I was alone, with little to no joy in my life, and still surrounded by the same people that either didn’t care, or were too distracted to notice. I was not a victim of depression. Depression was my chosen form of expression. But when it didn’t yield the response I was looking for, I once again found myself asking questions for which I had no answers.

    I think that’s part of the problem in that state. The less answers I had, or more importantly, in the absence of answers that appeased my needs, I slipped further into the belief that I probably just wasn’t significant enough for anyone to want to do what was important for me. And they must know what is important for me because I had been expressing my dissatisfaction for so long that surely they could have figured it out by now if only they cared enough, right? So it stood to reason that they probably just didn’t care enough. I needed to make a choice. Continue to abandon myself in the hope that they will notice and respect me, or abandon my expectations of them and give up my principles in order to feel included.

    I chose me. I chose my principles. And most importantly, I chose to stand unapologetically for what I believe to be right, in spite of what is socially acceptable. This increased the accusations against me of having unrealistic expectations. It increased the isolation when I challenged people’s insincerity or hypocrisy, but none of it deterred me. I saw my weaknesses in those around me. Some of them put in a sincere effort to overcome it, like me. But most choose to live in denial because of the fear of losing those that they still wish would recognise their significance.

    Depression set in when I looked for people to respect those things that I felt most passionate about and instead only found ridicule and rejection instead. It set in when I abandoned myself in favour of others, only to find that they had abandoned me as well. Depression became my voice when I gave up my right to be me. But depression never defined me. It never will. It will always only ever be the most passive form of resistance I would be able to muster up against a cruel world that celebrates conformity while crying out for individuality. It will only be my chosen form of expression as long as I fear rejection from those that I despise at worst, or disagree with at best.

    I now realise that I didn’t abandon myself in favour of others. Instead, I sacrificed what I wanted in the hope that that sacrifice would bring solace and a smile to those that I thought needed it. Unfortunately, I realised too late that no amount of self-sacrifice can fill the void of an ungrateful soul. So now I give without the expectation of receiving. I live with the hope that they will realise what is important rather than being distracted by what is popular. Unfulfilled expectations of significant others can never be remedied by a pill, nor by self-harm regardless of what form it may take. Seeing people for the flawed human beings that they are is the only way to maintain your sanity in an insane society. It’s when you expect perfection from yourself, or others, or both, that you solicit for yourself the most painful reality that need not be experienced.

  • Ties That Blind

    There are times when we’re so fixated on wanting to remove ourselves from a situation because we fear contaminating it, that we lose sight of the fact that our absence is in fact the greatest contamination of all. I find this most relevant in families, where our insecurity to fulfil our roles as role models leaves us receding and convincing ourselves that they’re better off without us. Unfortunately that insecurity rarely presents itself as that. More often than not it manifests itself as either selfishness or arrogance, both of which are simply defence mechanisms that we employ to prevent others from seeing our weakness.

    But it’s not about us as individuals. It never has been. The desire we all have to be part of something greater, or to be part of a wholesome social structure that is nurturing rather than destructive is what we undermine when we succumb to those insecurities. The most intriguing change in my life has been my need to recognise when I stopped being the nurtured and when I started being the nurturer. At some point I stopped being just the son, or cousin, and I started being the father, and the uncle. But it is my singular focus on needing to be nurtured that blinds me from realising that my nurturing is now dependent on being the nurturer.

    It all sounds so complicated, and it will complicate even further when I need to transition to being an elder, and not just the uncle or fatherly figure. But if I resist these changes in the rightful expectations that others have of me, I will be denying the next generation of the very essence of that which gave me a sense of community, family, and belonging. Sometimes it’s not being valued as an individual that gives us the comfort that we need to feel appreciated. Sometimes it’s simply that feeling of being part of a wholesome support structure that defines our self worth. Our innate need for significance is not only fed by recognition for our individual efforts, but more importantly it is fed by being part of something greater than us, and even more critical, having a pride of association with that belonging.

    And so I started contemplating these ties that blind us. It’s ties we maintain to who we were without realising that we have yet to embrace who we are, or who we aspire to be. It’s ties that hold us back in our belief that we have a right to take before we have a right to give. It’s that same sick mentality that convinces us that unless we’re responsible, we’re not accountable. Unless it is related to a responsibility we have over our own children or family members, then we’re not accountable for contributing towards the wellbeing of society at large. We forget that what strengths we have, others have as weaknesses, with the reverse being just as true. So when we stand arrogantly proclaiming that to each their own because we’re doing our bit and they must do theirs, we’re assuming that we’re superior to them in every way because we forget that they probably see similarly frustrating flaws in us.

    This is not an abstract notion. It’s not a philosophical debate either. It’s simply the realisation that if we act selfishly, we will deny the next generation the very security that now allows us the luxury to act selfishly. There is no such thing as a self-made man. We are shaped by society, and even when rejected by that same society, it is those that we surrounded ourselves with to find comfort in our rejection that formed the society from which we drew strength. I think the gravest delusion we suffer from is the assumption that we first need to receive before we can reciprocate. That’s the problem with this world. Everyone is waiting for everyone else, because the fear of rejection or insignificance is so great, that we’d rather demand it through obligation instead of earning that acceptance and inclusion through sacrifice.

    Worse still is the fact that the few that do sacrifice before they receive are most often the ones most trampled upon by the very same ones that cry foul when they are dealt a poor hand by life.

  • The Vehicle of My Life

    The analogy of the car has always been the most versatile and relatable of all when used to describe the complexities of our existence. Recently I’ve found myself preoccupied by its relevance in how we relate our bodies to our souls. But the analogy extends almost seamlessly to reflect how we interpret or experience relationships as well. It’s fascinating but also dulling, because something as complex as life can be explained by something as simple as a commodity used for daily commutes, but dulling because it enforces the realisation of the ephemeral nature of life, and everything we associate with it.

    Like with any car, the more you abuse it, the less likely it is to give you a pleasant drive and a long service. The same applies to relationships that are imbalanced. When one partner is constantly demanding more and giving less in return, it wears down that vehicle of marriage. The longer that continues, the more likely it is that the vehicle will eventually stall, or fall into total disrepair, often beyond a state of economic repair. But we miss this obvious truth. So the reality often plays out where the offending party continues in their erroneous ways for an extended period of time, and eventually when they realise the abuse that they’ve been subjecting their partner to, they resolve to be better and in the process expect everything to suddenly continue as it was intended in the first place. Regardless of their good intentions, the reality of the damage caused up to that point cannot be dismissed.

    That would be like driving the absolute hell out of a car from the day you bought it, and then realising that it’s starting to show signs of malfunction and possibly breakdown, at which point you decide to drive it nicely. No matter how smoothly you handle it after that, the damage done will still require a massive effort, and often expense, before the car will be in a good condition. However, the creaks and rattles will never be entirely gone, so those reminders of its original abuse will always remain. The same applies to an imbalanced relationship. Regardless of how many good reasons may exist for the disruptive partner to have behaved in a disruptive way, they need to accept that they lose the right to be treated without prejudice or bias when they eventually realise the error of their ways. At that point, their sincerity of resolve will be tested in a way that will reduce them to a humbled subject that must begin by earning the respect and commitment from the one whose trust and kindness they may have abused up to that point.

    This is an unnecessarily complicated post to explain a really simple truth. If you’re not willing to reap what you sow, don’t be upset when your crop fails. Don’t blame the earth, or the rains, nor the labourers, or the tools. And if you’re not willing to accept your accountability in the process, then expect to spend what will feel like an eternity before you let go of the ego that drove you to believe that the problem was with everyone else, rather than with you.

    This world lacks accountability and community. In the absence of these it is not surprising that we are prone to take more than we give. We feel entitled to claim more than we feel responsible to contribute. But worse than all this, our small efforts are almost always dispensed with an expectation of reciprocation. We present our contribution as selfless but quickly grow vindictive when it goes unappreciated. The world is in an imbalanced state, and everyone thinks that problem will be solved by farting less.

  • Solitude

    The rhythm and rhyme of this poem dances to the melody of my life. It has resonated with me since I first read it, and continues to echo the sentiments that unravel my composure, while simultaneously providing me with the awkward comfort of knowing that my struggles are not new, nor unique. As troubled as I may be, it confirms that what plagues me is as common as the cold which demands no special treatment except a common remedy for a common ailment. Let her words speak.

    Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

    Laugh, and the world laughs with you:
    Weep, and you weep alone;
    For the sad old earth
    Must borrow its mirth,
    It has trouble enough of its own.

    Sing, and the hills will answer;
    Sigh, it is lost on the air;
    The echoes bound
    To a joyful sound,
    But shrink from voicing care.

    Rejoice, and men will seek you;
    Grieve, and they turn and go;
    They want full measure
    Of all your pleasure,
    But they do not want your woe.

    Be glad, and your friends are many;
    Be sad, and you lose them all;
    There are none to decline
    Your nectared wine,
    But alone you must drink life’s gall.

    Feast, and your halls are crowded;
    Fast, and the world goes by;
    Succeed and give,
    And it helps you live,
    But it cannot help you die.

    There is room in the halls of pleasure
    For a long and lordly train;
    But one by one
    We must all file on
    Through the narrow aisles of pain.

  • Manufactured Threat

    I often stare in awe at people that have the energy to maintain their guard for an extended period of time, often their entire adult life, without appearing drained. They are often unassuming and enthusiastic about life, rarely missing an opportunity to make mention of the many wonderful experiences they’re having every other day. But if you look really closely, there is a quiet lie that accents every word and every gesture. A quiet lie that reveals the pain and the incompleteness of the existence that they pretend is so idyllic. It doesn’t require a trained eye or a special skill to see it. It just requires that you pay attention.

    I look at the smile on people’s faces and most are incomplete. They laugh a lot, and smile even more, but their smile rarely reaches their eyes. Their eyes assume the position needed to complete the gesture, but it lacks the sparkle and the enchanting energy that is exuded when it truly reflects a pleased heart, or a content soul. The mystery of what creates the silent lie often escapes even them because its source is so well hidden that it’s like that trinket that is put away safely because it’s too fragile to handle only to never be found again until some upheaval or significant event causes us to dig into a part of our closet that was always left untouched while waiting for the right moment to arrive. That’s when we’re reminded of the darkness that descended for a while, but was hastily ushered away to prevent prying eyes from noticing the vulnerability that it revealed. But somehow, when that trinket is finally rediscovered, the scars that were too raw to touch or caress may have assumed a charm of their own over the years which finally made it bearable to observe them in a new light while even appreciating them for the characteristic quirks that gave us that endearing trait that we previously would have despised.

    Scars of the soul are as visible as scars of the skin, if not more so but only if you’re paying attention. When we truly seek to engage with another, we’ll see in their eyes what their mouths and bodies refuse to reveal. Their eyes are incapable of lying. Conviction can only be faked if the pretender has convinced themselves of the lie that is being presented. Only then might the eyes conceal it even if only momentarily. And so we go through life protecting ourselves from events that should only have defined a moment in our life, but we nurtured it to define our world instead. In the process of this self-deceit we commit the next greatest harm against ourselves. We create a manufactured threat that convinces us that the defences that belonged to a single moment are necessary for our preservation. But the hurt of the moment was cherished more than the strength we had to survive it, which caused it to grow and fester in our being, while our strength lost its true purpose and instead became a means to maintain a façade that protected us from ourselves while believing that we needed to protect ourselves from the world.

    There is a time in our life when even after all this deception has ravaged us that we will establish a trusted handhold that threatens to draw us out of our fortress. It is at that time that we face the daunting decision to give trust a chance, or to continue with the deception. Most choose the deception and achieve mediocre goals in life that may even seem significant relative to others. Mediocrity is easily seen as greatness if the benchmark is a soul that is damaged more than your own. So we choose our points of reference carefully in order to maintain the deception, all the while convincing ourselves that there is a real threat that we face. A threat that we never expect others to understand because we fail to see the manufactured threats of others while we’re distracted by our own, instead of paying attention.

    Occasionally someone will come along to nudge you out of the stupor. Alas, we’ll likely not notice because attention to the present moment will be dwarfed by our need to protect ourselves.

  • They miss the point!

    I have a tendency to seek the potential in people and then proceed to encourage them towards realising that potential. I do this because I am naïve enough to believe that that is truly the aspiration of all of us. You know? That age old claim that says that we want others to believe in us because we’re so precious and we have so much to offer but we’re just waiting for the right opportunity and the right support and the right everything to come along before we can take that pathetic step forward to suggest that we actually have something to offer. It’s all bullshit.

    I’ve realised that the most gut wrenching and draining thing you could ever do is apply yourself towards the upliftment of others. Why? Simple. People are lazy by nature. They’re lazy and un apologetically uninspired because the few that pursue their passions are mocked and ridiculed for being different, while the rest are preoccupied with fitting in and being ridiculously unique just like everyone else.

    Yes, I am annoyed and disheartened. More so at the fact that there is always an overwhelming chorus of people chanting for change, but as soon as the choir breaks up, they’re the first to run home to enjoy their celebration of mediocrity while living life through the achievements of their icons that are nothing more than fictional tales they see in the gossip columns of the tabloids. The stench of puny thinking is repulsive. People look at things and immediately decide what is good enough to get past what they’re faced with, while just a small group will actually consider how can they take what they are faced with and turn it into something larger than life.

    I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to understand the human psyche because of a naïve notion that suggested that it is fear and nothing else that limits us in what we can achieve. I thought that by understanding those fears I would be able to help them see past that limitation and thereby unlock a beauty that would amaze even them. Of course understanding their fears was always only ever a result of me seeking to understand my own first. But they never get that. The default assumption is that if I am able to articulate what constricts them, then I must be free of it myself. I must have never experienced it hence my ability to seemingly trivialise what they feel.

    They just don’t get it. In all my efforts I’ve tried to demonstrate to them that they are innately capable of greater things without the need for a guide or mentor or other pillar of strength to lean on. However, I didn’t realise that in doing so, they automatically turned me into their crutch to achieve more. That is not nearly a compliment to me when considered within the context of the disappointment it spawns. Each time I believe they’ve reached a new level of confidence and capability, I’ve found that they were only acting out of compliance with what they deemed to be my expectations rather than because they had a sincere conviction in the values that I thought we shared.

    This is an unapologetically self-indulgent rant. It is a trickle of what needs to be vented in order to regain some balance in my perspective on life and people. I have trusted in the human goodness that is often celebrated, but each time it has resulted in the degradation of relations because the burden of expectation was greater than the willingness to be true. The impossibility of perfection should never be reason enough to dissuade us from its pursuit. Unfortunately, too often, we’re prone to believe that only icons or celebrated leaders are capable of such accomplishments, while conveniently forgetting that a human exists behind the façade that they have imposed on them.

  • Licensed to Drive

    Most people can relate to an analogy about cars, so here’s one relating to mental health that I thought would be able to demonstrate my point about the main stream approach to dealing with depression and other so-called mental illnesses (hopefully you have the patience to read it to the end).

    Imagine that the accelerator pedal of the car is your ability to express positive emotions, and the brake pedal was negative emotions, and you are the driver. One day, while driving along minding your own business you get hit by another driver that wasn’t paying attention. The crash isn’t serious enough to write off your car, but it did cause problems with your accelerator and your brake system. More than this, there was some damage done to your car’s appearance.

    So off you went and replaced some of the damaged parts, did some repairs on those parts that couldn’t be replaced, and gave it a coat of spray that made it look just like new again. Only, it wasn’t new, because you knew how much went into getting the outside to look perfect again, while under the paint work, you knew how many wrinkles and scratches were covered up. But everyone told you how great the car looked again, so you ignored the defects and made a point of getting back into your car to get to all the places you wanted to go.

    However, you didn’t do such a good job of the accelerator and the brake pedal. At times, the brakes would feel spongy and unreliable, so whenever you needed to use it, you doubted, until eventually the doubt grew so strong that you started driving slower than ever to avoid using it at all. Then you realises that the accelerator doesn’t feel the way it used to either. It used to feel firm and responsive, almost as decisive as you were, and it used to cause the car to lunge forward when you needed to, and to just cruise when it felt good to do so as well. But now, the accelerator was also unpredictable. At times it would accelerate beautifully, but without warning, the car would slow down almost to a halt for no reason. No matter how much you wanted it to move, pressing your foot on that pedal just wouldn’t get it to go.

    So you eventually decided that maybe the damage was more than you were capable of fixing, so you decided to go out looking for a mechanic, especially since all your friends and family kept telling you how great they are. The mechanic looks at the symptoms and quite quickly lets you know that with some work, it can be back to what it was, and with your consent, he set about fixing and upgrading the brakes to perform even better than before. Then he looked at the accelerator and found the cable to be loose. So he tightened the nut, and adjusted the cable and once again, the car was able to accelerate without any problems. He also tuned the car with some new equipment that wasn’t previously available, which made the car lighter on fuel, and faster than before.

    However, having had too many close shaves with the brakes and accelerator being faulty, and still remembering the impact of the accident, you keep holding back, wanting to reduce the risk of getting into another accident. The memory of the dents and scratches hidden by the new coat of paint still fresh in your mind, you start driving more cautiously than you ever did before. You slow down for no reason other than just in case, and you don’t even drive at the speed limit any longer, even though the car is perfectly capable of handling it. In fact, the car is now capable of performing better than it did when it was brand new because of the new technology they put in, yet you still drive it slower than ever.

    The crash caused by the other driver is what happens in life. They’re the people around us that we trust, but they end up being mindless in their actions that results in damage in our lives that they’re most often oblivious to. They move on and focus on their own lives, while we wait for someone to come along an fix us. The mechanic is modern medicine. A necessary intervention strategy, but nothing more. Able to recover most physical aspects of our health, but failing to remedy the emotional ravages of what took place.

    The wrinkles and scratches beneath the bright shiny paint work is the memories that haunt us, while the paint work is the face we show to the world when we pretend that everything is perfect. The new technologies are the life lessons learnt, that allows us to deal with future encounters more effectively and maturely, but we refuse to use it because of the fear of getting hit by another reckless driver. So instead, we plod along at a fraction of our capability from before the traumatic incident so that we can reduce as much as possible any potential for another impact that could send us spiralling out of control.

    The psychiatrist that so many believe in blindly have tools to re-establish mental pathways, but they don’t have the tools to make you use it. Again, at times, a necessary intervention strategy, but not a long term solution.

    Then there is you, the driver. Focused on the impact that hit you from nowhere, and too afraid to even consider having to deal with such an impact again. All the while, the distraction of that memory causes you not to notice that with the lessons learnt, your ability to avoid such impacts in future was significantly improved (upgrade of brakes and accelerator, knowledge of how situations like that occur, and what choices could have been taken differently, or could have been more informed), but instead of leveraging that knowledge that you have acquired through the experience for improving the way you navigate your way through life in future, you choose to avoid it instead. Your avoidance of those life experiences, of people, of interactions, is what causes you to slip into a depression where you refuse to acknowledge the tools and abilities you have at your disposal because you suddenly don’t trust yourself due to you blaming yourself for the reckless behaviour of that others.

    The thought almost always comes before the chemical reaction. And in cases where the chemical reaction may have been preventing the thought patterns to occur, the intervention strategies that are available provides us with the ability to kick start that process. Once that process is kick started, we have to apply our minds actively rather than rely on the intervention strategy to sustain us. The problem that many face these days is that they’re being told that the intervention strategy is in fact a long term dependency that they have no choice in. When we give up the choice to take control, only then does the intervention become the mechanism for survival, or even just to cope.

    Our inability to believe in ourselves is the most profitable outcome for the pharmaceutical companies quite possibly in the history of modern medicine. But we have drugs to distract us from that sad reality, that’s why we don’t even have the presence of mind to realise what it is that we’re capable of.

    I once heard someone say that the only way to cheat old age is to continue learning. The more we learn, the greater our ability to acquire new knowledge. Therefore, it is easier for someone with more knowledge to appreciate and intelligently apply new concepts, than it is for someone that hasn’t applied their minds much towards the acquisition of knowledge. When we discard our life experiences as bad memories that we’d rather forget, we effectively throw away priceless knowledge that could never be acquired through any other means. Books and doctors can only give you facts and assumptions, but only you will ever know the truth about you. Don’t suppress that truth, embrace it, and use it to build yourself up from strength to strength, realising that you decide what your limits are, not society.