I found myself in these same traps again, in this darkness, where the sun doesn’t shine, and I am lost as lost can be and there is no escape, and there is nothing else to do but suffer. Was this depression talking? It could be. It has been a good part of my life. It is present like never and relevant, and it fucks with me constantly. All these hours of meditation and calming this shit down work only temporarily. It’s like a sunrise in the morning obscured by shitty dark grey clouds that wouldn’t show the beauty of it all. You’ll look to see the wonder of nature, and all you see is sadness all around. You know you want to escape, you know this is not right, you know this is not you, but you can’t. You’ve been part of it, a significant portion of it.

Charles Bukowski wrote, “We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.” Everything will pass someday, somehow, someway. I hope it will. I never liked to be part of this, and this is not the way I am. It just fucking drags you into this mud and smears the fuck out of it on your face and soul. You try to wipe it off, wipe it out, but with time it doesn’t matter. It won’t help you. And you are infected with it. It’s on your breath and face and skin and soul and in your ears and your blood. It is fucking everywhere. You feel it in your chest and spine and arms and legs and brain. How should I deal with it? How to be free and happy again? How to stay away from it? I don’t know. 

I am never a sad person in life as I am trying to be as optimistic as possible, but I cannot sometimes maintain that frame of mind for too long. Something else takes over. Even though there are plenty of reasons to be happy and enjoy life when this fucking darkness comes over, I am down on my knees, struggling to get up and look forward. I guess I did allow this to happened to me somehow. Unintentionally. I was trying to make the broken and useless shit work, and it just wouldn’t, and as time went by, it hit me back hard. It won’t comply. There are many sacrifices to be made, and I think I’ve made too many. Too many to count for, but just enough to make me feel all that now and suffer. 

“The road to misery is paved with compromised values.” A great quote from The Minimalists, which nailed it for me. I have compromised myself too much for shit that doesn’t matter to me, the shit that I don’t care about. Why? Because it set me up to be successful. I set myself up to be a “normal guy who went to college and work his way up the career ladder.” There is nothing wrong with that. Most people do it. Most of the people are doing it well. A lot are suffering, but I get to make better choices, get paid more, work better jobs, get more doors open for me. It started as a typical office job, average responsibility, and normal workday until the shit hit the fan, and it went overboard and spat everywhere. Suddenly, I had to work more, much more, so much more that there was no time to think, no time to live my life, no time for me, no time for my family. What else is that important than my well-being and my family? Damn right, fucking nothing. Why am I doing this when I don’t have to? I am doing this to myself, but I shouldn’t. I should’ve been more thoughtful and more careful. Some things in life we should never compromise or sacrificed. It is a sin; it is bad karma. This shit will hit you back much harder down the line. 

And here I am at thirty-three, still confused like a high school kid with what the fuck am I to do in this life? Whatever I went for early in life didn’t quite work as expected, or it only worked partially until it started to eat me alive. Now I am miserable as fuck trying to find an exit to escape, to just fucking disappear. I thought by this age in my life, I would be much better off, more independent, more established, more resourceful, have more money. I have a family to support now, and I have to be strong, but I just cannot deal with the day-to-day nonsense at work. Fuck work. Fuck this work. Fuck that work. Fuck any work that kills the man physically, spiritually, mentally. 

I always thought that this what I was going after for so many years would ensure a peaceful and satisfying life, but instead, I am putting halls in my walls as my phone and laptop fly angrily across the room and into its fate. This is not the life I want to live. This is not the life I want to have. This is not the life that brings me meaningful joy and satisfaction. I thought I found it once, but now it seems like it will be a never-ending pursuit of happiness and peace and harmony in life. I know for sure it will never happen while working fucking corporate “office” jobs.

It is time for me to change, re-adjust my life preferences, mindset, and full reset. It is time to go after something new, change my lifestyle, set new goals, refresh my ideas of a happy and meaningful life, go after whatever it is that will make me happy. I can’t seem to stand my own bullshit anymore. I can’t go there any longer anymore. There is a root cause of this depression, and at some point, I need to figure it all out and stop it. This poison is spreading fast, and I can’t remember when the last time I actually liked this kind of life? I am not asking for too much, “just a little less pain.”