Lies Between Us podcast, episode #28: Amid the Truth of Possibilities

This topic here feels way too big to even address, dang, it’s huge. Earlier this week I planned a half-hearted attempt to do something about it, but then stopped. With the subject looming overhead, I tried to just move on with my daily activities, you know, staying busy and trying not to think about it. Alas I could not escape, I had no choice.

A few days ago I started to do something about it, I began planning a public event in Madison for this week, planning it for today actually, for Thursday April 4th.

Lining up a few different critical tasks, I prepared for a Facebook-publicized event pronouncement, but then something shifted, and I convinced myself no, no, I had to stop. I couldn’t, it was too big, and perhaps the chore was also too dirty-ego-centric to follow through on, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I paused, I didn’t do anything resembling renting space, or arranging food for invitees, or the like. Still, the gosh-darn notion consumed me. So, as lame as my attempt may turn out to be, here I will try to explain. If you’re too busy with other tasks, just click on the attachment below and you can listen to me tell the tale instead of taking time to read about it.

Leading with intention makes for a better life, that is if not coming unglued when unexpected results follow.

Time, and change.

Time, certainly a fascinating topic. Is time more about math, or is it rather the accumulation of wonder, hope, hard work, and a little bit of mysticism?

Speaking of time, how long does a decade feel? 10 years, is that a long time? How much change occurs in our individual realities across such span? Are we different today than we were a decade ago? How much have we grown, learned, and evolved in 10 years?

Do our undesirable actions, behaviors, and addictions bubble up time and again as we journey, so to dispel that we have learned anything at all? Or can we say with objective show-me-like truthfulness that indeed we have mastered those habits that once domineered us?

10 years sounds like a long-ass-time. Try to imagine where you’ll be, how will you look, who will you be with, what will you be doing, and not doing, will you be happy, or disgruntled? It’s a long…ass…time.

Hell, five years almost feels like forever. Three years, well, that’s also almost unimaginable. Even a single turn of one new calendar creates question. Frankly, I do not know all that will occur in the next 12 months, both those things intended, awhile the variables flying in from left field. I can barely imagine the final result.

How much control do we actually have over the outcome? Is the freewill to steer our own ship an illusion as some claims say? Is our destination predetermined, and despite all attempts, can we legitimately become someone new, someone different, someone better?

Of course change occurs. Change is one of two life certainties, we have no choice. Change, surely change happens. The other one is death and that’s it. That’s all there is to be sure of in life, those two things: Change, and death.

So ok, we do change our lives don’t we, or maybe is it that life changes us? Regardless, day by day we metamorphosize into a brand new us, forever different than who we were yesterday, we have no choice. By default, we become different hour by hour, day by day, year by year, and certainly, decade by decade. Perhaps the trick is, different how, meaning different in what ways? Are we smarter as each week passes? Are we more resilient from one month to the next? Are we comprehensively trending upwards, or alternatively staying somewhat flat-line neutral, you know, like somewhat stagnant?

Well, what’s the baseline? What’s the standard, and where’s the finish line? What was our goal of such life segments? Did we have something specific we were oriented towards, or just off on a free-range exploration? Did we possess a map? Did we hold a compass? Was there a planned route? Did we have any idea what we were intending to accomplish at all?

Perhaps we’ve already established the wild variability within the concept of time, even year by year, never mind a decade’s worth. So if 10 years is a long ass time, then what about 25? 25, a quarter of a century, because it seems we like quarters, it’s a measurement inherently understood. Imagining how life will be different 25 years from now is almost too much of a span isn’t it? Jeeze, in 25 years I’ll probably be dead, which by the way is not my pessimism but is nine years past the average age of the standard American.

Time, an interesting proposition. Do we lose time when unmindful? Do we make up time when late? Do we find time when needed, create time when necessary? Do we hold god-like controls to alter such astronomically-guided comings and goings of the sun and moon? Of course not, it’s a play on words silly, but we can choose how we spend time, that’s for sure. Seeking betterment or wallowing in past pains is a choice, although not aways can we control it.

Isn’t it a self-evident reality that what we do or do not is somewhat within our realm of controllable guidance? Remember that change is a given, so for me I try to build in some flex time into most plans, yeah that there might be a wise move to continue with. Next, I try to act with intention, presumptive of the factuality that everything changes, so there will surely be detours and storms during my journey.

Change, how fascinating is change? My first major life chess game move occurred 35 years ago today, April 4th, 1989.

Possibilities, and willingness.   

Possible, I finally came to believe that something different was possible, something new was possible, something better was possible for me. My new life initiated amid the truth of possibilities- I could change, it was possible, and I began there. Yet wait, such notion is neither quick nor easy so please do not misunderstand me.

Five years prior, I had wanted a new life. I also needed a new life, but I have found that in such situations, ‘want’ drives change more than ‘need’…more on that later. I needed a new life, I wanted a new life, because my at-time current reality sucked, it really, really, sucked. Meaning to say that five years prior to my first huge life change, I was a junkie, shoving needles into my arms many-many times, 24 hours a day, for years.

Much as I needed and wanted change, I felt there was nothing else available to me in life, I felt there was no way out of the hell I had put myself in.

It took five years to finally absorb my found truth of possibilities.

When then finally committed to the truth of possibilities, next I grasped tightly, the willingness to suffer as much as I had to endure so to reach my intended arrival place. I mustered the courage, the bravery, the tenacity, and the grit to withstand all hardships realized and unknown along my way. Caring not for the bumps, and bruises, and breaks as I pushed forward, I faced death head-on. If my expedition forward killed me, oh well- I did not care, because I knew The Grim Reaper was hot on my heels, meaning I could not go back, no way.

35 years ago today I chose to become someone new, and different, and better than the person I was. For 13 years prior, I abused drugs every single day. For eight years before that, I was mad at the world, and ran from those things I believed were trying to hurt me: That being my parents, school, and perhaps most of all, my own thoughts and feelings.

I refused to go quietly.

I refused to continue as-is, I could not continue as-is, my way of living was not sustainable. I choked on this bitter truth for years before I was finally ready to create a brand new me. Only until I had exhausted all other options, only when there was just a single path left to journey, and only once I believed change was possible for me, only then was I able to spread my wings and take flight towards my best possible life.

Only then.

Veritably, today, I am only 35 years old, because only at such time did I truly begin living.