06. Pain is a signal that something’s wrong, suffering is what happens when we don’t heed it.
Physiologically, of course this is true, but it’s even more true emotionally and mentally. We almost like to create problems for ourselves out of a very deep belief that we deserve pain (the bad kind) out of retribution for how terrible we (wrongfully) believe ourselves to be. It’s only through grappling with that pain that we realize it was always self-induced and served mostly just to help us unlearn our need to create it, to realize why we don’t deserve it, and in the process of doing so reconnect with who we truly are, not just what the rest of the world sees us to be.
07. The universe whispers until it screams.
There is no traumatic experience that is ever a completely singular event.
There is no heartbreak that is ever just the cause of one thing. It’s the pattern. It’s what the loss compounds on. It’s the final hit that breaks us open, the moment when we realize that we knew what was true all along, though something prevented us from heeding the calls early on. That is what we break through when we break open. How beautiful, to live in a body and world that allows you to explore the darkness, but pains you when it’s time to come back. How wild that nobody tells us about this until we’re in it, or already almost too far gone.
66
WHY WE HOLD
ON TIGHTEST
to the things
THAT AREN’T
MEANT FOR US
I used to wonder how you let go of the things that are killing you, when it feels like it would kill you to let go. How you decide between “if things are meant to be, they will be” and “if you want it, you have to go get it.”
I think we hold on tightest to the things that aren’t meant for us because at some level, we know they aren’t really ours. We’re always seeking the love we know we don’t have. We’re always trying to prove the things that are not entirely self-evident.
We know that when we stop thinking and talking and racking through the details again and again, it will really be over. When all that exists is an idea, holding on is the only way to keep it.
Because letting go has little to do with giving somebody permission to leave our lives, or declare that they don’t love us anymore, or walk away for good, and everything to do with accepting that they already have.
I don’t know about fate. But I do know the things that are ours don’t require us to mentally and emotionally latch onto them to remain. That the best things are never forced, are never created out of ultimatums, never leave us reeling and questioning them for months or years at a time.
I do know that you cannot prove how much you love by how much you’re pained over loss. That you do not prove your character by how well you can convince other people you’re doing the right thing.
And I do know that it’s never the love that hurts you, it’s the attachment to the idea of what it’s supposed to be. I do know that we will never be able to find real love unless we learn to detach from what it should be. I do know that we’re never going to find true happiness until we do the same. I do know that nothing here lasts, and the idea that it does is an illusion—we eventually lose everything, every last thing we have and are and own.
So the point isn’t what we lose, but what we had in the first place. We aren’t meant to attain things like bullet points on a resume; we’re supposed to go through them and let them go through us.
Some love teaches us what it has to teach us in a month. Some a lifetime.
Neither is more important than the other.
The things that are meant for us are the things that force us to stop seeking an external light, but to start becoming it. The things that are meant for us are trying and joyous and beautiful and excruciating. They’re the things we don’t think about.
The things we don’t have to hold on tightly to make happen.
67
THINGS
YOUR 20s
are too
SHORT FOR
01. Letting anybody convince you that because you’re young, you’re incapable.
Plato began his career in politics before he was 20 and has stated that he faced ridicule in his coming-of-age for that reason. Some of the greatest cultural tycoons of this century were in their 20s when their first huge contributions were made: Jobs, Zuckerberg, etc.
Imagine where we’d be if they listened to the people who said,
"What do you know?"
02. Arguing with people whose intentions are not to understand you, only to prove themselves right.
You do not owe it to anybody to carry on a conversation that is only serving the ego, but you do owe it to yourself to step out of the inevitable frustration and self-doubt of interacting with people who don’t listen to understand, but to respond; who don’t speak to be heard, but to defend.
03. Wasting your energy placating the habits of people who don’t take the initiative to actually get their shit together.
Often the most frustrating thing about dealing with someone who is going through a tough time is that they aren’t willing to listen to reason or logic, or even simply your opinion. You end up having to pretend. You nod along with whatever they’re saying because you don’t want your every interaction to turn into a fight. The resentment will build and the relationship will crumble anyway.
04. Justifying your choices to people who only care about how you look within the context of their lives.
The people who will squawk the loudest about what you should and shouldn’t do or how you’re on the wrong path or whatever else they couldn’t possibly have the grounds to know are usually the ones most concerned with how it makes them look and how they’re going to explain you to friends or cousins or sisters or family or coworkers. Remember that while you’re deciding who matters, and while we’re on the topic…
05. Remaining in contact with people you don’t like because you
“should,” because it’s more convenient, because you’ll feel guilty if you don’t, because you’re too afraid of what someone will think if you’re finally honest with yourself and other people.