The Challenge

(Well, one of them, anyway!)

One of the chief challenges I have found in becoming a
stronger person has to do with finding a proper balance
between a 'need' for other people and a need to be true
to self.

It's a daunting proposition to go up against the world, to
follow your own path when it so frequently places you on
the outskirts of the norm.

People tend to like what's secure, familiar, reassuringly 'same.'
Anything or anyone that goes outside those lines is cause
for discomfort, and therefore promptly avoided. Or attacked.

So the decision becomes choosing between self and others.

Well, certainly we can't sustain ourselves by looking out
for others, so basic survival tells us we have to look out for
self.

And yet, unless independently wealthy, the chance of being
able to truly live a separate life is rare.

So there has to be a compromise of sorts struck. Putting up
with others, overlooking nonsense, exchanging pleasantries,
all of the duplicity that comes from modern life is necessary to
some small degree, no matter how independently we live.

Even as I detach from the demands and wishes of all others
as regards my overall life (thoughts, actions, feelings,) I still have
to accommodate the outside world in reference to neighbors, law
enforcement, and other key areas.

There isn't much of an in-between when it comes to the social
world of choosing to live for others or self. Friends, family,
coworkers, lovers will all place demands and manipulate you
to further their own needs rather than support yours. Coming to
terms with that and desensitizing one's self is an ongoing process.

Aloneness is a reality of this planet.

But how much people are able to embrace that reality is up to
conditioning and stamina. Many may need the illusions of
social supports; putting up with family they can't stand rather
than being alone, enduring abusiveness rather than doing without
so-called friends, suppressing self to accommodate a smothering
spouse....we all make deadly decisions for our well being every
day.

It all comes down to trying to find that balance....and determining
what we are willing to tolerate.

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Expansion Efforts

In the course of learning life, there is certainly
more that's unknown than known.


We can never be more than, at best, in struggle for
dominance with our surroundings, whether they
be job, people, addiction, love, or what have you.
(At worst, we may hope to tread water or 'drown
less often.') Living in charge is a luxury afforded
to very few, and even then tends to be tenuous and
partial.


Finding a balance may mean changing perspective
or acquiescing, or learning to release the need to
control or mandate. That's for those of us without
the money and pull to continue pulling strings at any
point in the game.


But into every life a little rain must fall, and even the
most talented of controllers are affected by dire
circumstance, much as their low and mid-level
counterparts are.


The trappings of 'success', materialism, the illusions
of happiness we strive to achieve and maintain and
reclaim...they can all cease to carry the significance we
afford them by our decision to unclench from the long-ago
instilled belief that we 'must' continue things as they
have always been.


If I relax the parameters, ask new questions, and
allow for the old bonds of belief to be shattered,
entire new worlds open up. We are only captives if
we continue to imagine ourselves such.

Being free cannot happen if I seek absolutes and rigid
definitions that are not reflective of the complex
and fluid life process.


Things are only as important as we make them.
All meaning is superficially implied.
Reevaluating and reassessing our core needs can
be a very sobering experience.

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