Power of No

For those of you that know me well enough, know that I cannot say no. No matter the circumstance, no matter the person, I struggle every time to say no. I love being there for people, but the reason that I am writing is that it is lately been kind of heavy on me. I wanted to come to the island and start anew, but it seems like a pattern has begun to reproduce itself. I am a very-giving person, and also at times have no backbone. In order to maintain the harmony, in order to maintain the peace, in order to ease other people’s discomfort at the cost of my own, I will always say yes to them.

I know people do not mean to take advantage, but given the environment here, I know people struggle to really see beyond their own frame of reference. I, like everyone, have my own limits, my own boundaries that when I cross I begin to crash. It is at this time that it seems when things like this bother me since people are not able to read me. I feel like down here though, when I hit a threshold like this, I crash and become empty. Still people try and push my buttons or ask of me things that will just further tether me to my hollow state of being.

I am not going to share my personal life every time I get into one of these states because that is for me to deal with, but because of me not being able to say no, because of my always trying not to displease someone else, I lose myself. This is something that I have been trying to change, and I have been trying to rectify it here by maintaining a low profile and keeping to myself during these times. It seems like some people, however, have not reached that level of emotional and mental understanding to be vigilant enough to see beyond their own self and see that others function and view things in a different matter and thus their demeanor toward these people should modify accordingly.

When I assert myself, I am the bad guy or I am the cranky one. I just sometimes want to be left alone. I do not need support in terms of someone to lean on or someone to listen to me for the most part. The only thing I have ever wanted was to feel special to those that I care about, but it seems like I am yet again constantly being pulled in multiple directions, yet for some reason it has not broken me; it just keeps stretching me over and over again to a point where my mind and self are becoming jumbled and unrecognizable.

Jihad: A Struggle

Life is a journey. Life is a process. Life is discovery. These are incantations concerning the theoretical adjectives that life should be like. Though many of the people that are surround me subscribe to such idioms, I find them to be flawed for me. A process describes a cyclical venture that does just that, keeps someone in a cycle. It is often very difficult for upward mobility in terms of spiritual, emotional, and mental intelligence, or if one does go through the cycles, they take a much longer time to come to the same realizations, and often by that point it is futile or too little too late.

A journey describes a path of which one often gets caught up in the surroundings. Yes, it is an open-minded focus, but often times people get too focused on the surroundings, too focused on the actual journey and the enjoyments of life, that they forget the end path, the end result. I am not a follower of such journeys as I believe life is a struggle not a journey. The word ‘jihad’ has been butchered by Americans, but in reality, it means “a struggle”. I struggle each day to overcome these illusions in order to keep working toward my purpose, keep working on my inner growth. I am not professing the life of a yogi by giving up all happiness, giving up all mechanisms of self-enjoyment and pleasure, but I do not believe that these things should define a person. I do not believe that these things should be an aim, but rather ways to keep a person on their path and journey. They should serve as a means to bolster a person’s resolve in his path in life, rather than distract him or cause him to go in a round-about either backwards or lead him in circles.

A discovery is that ‘Ah-Ha’ moment in which one stumbles upon a higher realization which propels them forward in life. While this is a beautiful way to look at things, when this idiom is dissected most people think of it to mean that with the flow of things, that with fate, that by simply drudging forward, they will attain the fruit of their labors. But that is exactly where the fallacy lies in my opinion. Where is the labor in the discovery? We often believe that things should be given to us, that we deserve enlightenment and success and happiness, that we are ENTITLED to it even. Sure there are discoveries in life that come from labors, but these labors, in my opinion, should be done through the acts of jihad, they should be found through a push to attain the final end results. A struggle to find the inner peace and inner enlightenment will push a person beyond any comfort zone, and it is this struggle that shall ultimately let them reap its benefits.

It is very weird to see how much I have transitioned as the years have gone by. I believe that I have successfully transitioned myself out of adolescence and the pettiness that comes with high school or undergrad environments. From this though, I have become introverted and use myself as my own support even if I let others believe that they help act as pillars of support for me. This is not to say that I do not care about people, but I have just learned that my parents, my God, and my soul are the only three things that have never betrayed me, the only pillars that have never let me fall as I began to collapse. They are the pillars that support me through my own jihad.

Floating Realizations

As the weeks have droned by, it seems like my inner self has been lulled into some sort of hibernation, some semblance of dormancy. My search for inner peace seems to have come to a standstill as the minutia of life continue to blind me to my true path and goals. It has been through my diligence that I keep striving to see beyond this and regain myself to keep going.

I thought my birthday would come and go, but I hit rock bottom then. The usual feelings of loneliness, unappreciated, worthlessness, and unnecessary self-pity all came as usual. I tried my best to conceal or swallow my own self-inflicted poisons, but this time a much more sinister feeling just would not subside. Guilt. The skeletons in my closet again came out, and it was too much to handle. I felt like I had nowhere to go. Caught alone with these feelings, I felt like I was cornered; forced to subject to its every whim and fancy.

Where am I now? Swallowing and internalizing everything around me again. I have been doing it for years, and though I have my weak moments, I have not yet fallen. It is who I am. I am know what my duty is and what my goals and my path in life are (Previous post). These glimpses from the past, however, are more than just glimpses. They are stumbles in my past where I strayed from the beaten trail; they are scars on my body that will never heal and remind me of a grim reality that will never fade away.

These floating realizations come and go, and I have struggled to make these thoughts tangible. They are thoughts and ideas that come to my mind that I realize about myself, but can't seem to find a reality to them. I know that sounds so confusing, but it just seems like I have been living in someone else's shoes these past few weeks. But I finally realize I think what has been bothering me, something too personal to write here, but something I know I must rectify, something that will take a long time to do, but something that hopefully I can begin to get atonement for. A realization that hopefully that will become reality and float no more.