Ruminating with purpose
There are hundreds of articles and books that guide you to stop looking back at your past in order to move forward. I’m sure you’ve heard of or encountered at some point in your life someone to tell you that you need to get over your past or certain aspects of it. What does that even mean?
Fear of failure
For someone who fears failure, the thought of failing is unacceptable. I think that a lot of people who struggle with depression also fear failure, especially when they convince themselves that their depression is “fixable”. When you convince yourself that failure is not an option you “fail” to fully grasp the idea that there are lessons to be learned, that there is something to gain in the long run.
Others: the fear that keeps us caged.
It seems that everyone I meet fears “others”: what “others” might say, or think, or how they will judge us. I think we’re socialized to have this fear. Not everyone feels it the same way or to the same degree, but most of us experience it.
Looking for happiness in all the wrong places.
Lots of people believe that success, achievement, and material possessions make them happy. While these may improve their quality of living, the pleasure of acquiring them comes with a fear of loss, and with it, pain. If this is so, what we experience when this happens is a form of conditional contentment…fleeting and ephemeris. The truth is, our definition of happiness is not really ours. We learn other peoples’ idea of happiness and drag it with us all throughout our lives, never putting it under the microscope or challenging it in any way. Our parents and their parents’ parents taught us everything about life BUT how to be ourselves, to…
