All of this motivational stuff is great and all, but there’s a reason why I learned it in the first place.
I’m going to give a somewhat cliff notes version of a story as I don’t want to get too gritty with it.
Outside of the last two years, story for another time, my life was pretty boring. I went into cyber school for the entirety of high school, which I view as one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.
Without my circle of friends I already had I would’ve been toast. I spent five years just cheating on school, playing video games, and spending a lot of time in my room. Lots of unfulfilment, pondering, and loneliness.
It wasn’t all bad, until 2021 hit. Oh boy. What a time for me. Without my parents, I would be nothing. I’ll be the first to say it. Back in 2021 though, my parents had their views about the COVID-19 pandemic which of course affected me and my sister.
We had to stay inside from late 2020 till spring ish of 2021. Doesn’t sound too bad right? Especially if you got your friends and all that. Wrong. I pushed some away, and others naturally got busy with life. I had to quit my job, again, because of the situation. I got hooked on a girl I texted for two weeks then got ghosted. Inside the house everyone rarely spoke as tensions were high. It was lonely. I was in mental hell.
I was feeling a lot of different emotions and having a lot of different thoughts. Mostly negative. I started to think I wasn’t good enough. I was angry. Distant. Insecure. Eventually numb as the depression and anger clashed so much they cancelled each other out. This went on for a few months. Does anyone have any ideas where this is going next?
Of course, I considered taking my own life. I was better than that though, and I knew it. As the winter broke I had enough. I always described it as I got bored with feeling like that. I knew there was way more out there in this life for me than just that. So I got busy.
I got into the world of motivational content learning about all these people online who post stuff and started soaking it all in. I started running and wanted to push my body the best I could. I was dealing with a forearm issue, so running it was. I achieved a 6.10 mile by the end of the summer. My journey into being a resilient person had just begun, and I was simply laying the foundations.
I had turned into a different person by the end of the year. I rebuilt my mindset, achieved things I didn’t think I could do, and just wanted to keep myself out of that bad place I was in. The cool thing about life is that it doesn’t always work like that, and there’s much bigger fish to fry down the line. Like I said, story for another time.
Whatever it is in life that you’re dealing with, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes situations just have to pass, sometimes you make them pass. In either case, I believe in you. This life is too short to be swallowed up by our own minds. Take care of yourself.
Forever learning. Always building.
-Ethan