Dear Diary, Passion Pulls Me From The Path
I failed yet again. While my heart was in the right place, I also went about it erroneously. The 2016 Election season sent me down a dark path, and I told myself I was not going to let myself do it again in 2020. Here I am in 2020 making similar mistakes, despite trying to maintain a greater awareness of my limitations and lessons learned from the journey along the way. I am a passionate person, and I tend to try to help wherever I see aid is needed. However, I don’t have the stamina to keep up with it all, nor do I have the ability to cease and call it a day. I want to live a peaceful life; instead, I find myself anxious and overwhelmed, wracked with fear and guilt.
My inabilities to live up to my ethics gnaw at me. I fall into self-made ‘should’ traps wherein I push against myself with more enthusiasm, and punish myself and those around me. I struggle to accept I am not who I think I used to be, and certainly am not who I wish to be. Even as my trophy cabinet continues to expand, tangible evidence showing what little I can do is meaningful to someone; I feel I should be doing more.
Having a good heart doesn’t matter if it comes in a damaged package, yet as I say that, I know, I would argue against that if someone said that to me. I refuse to hide behind mania or PTSD as an excuse. These are things that I have to master, as everyone has a self to conquer. I view it akin to a martial-arts journey. One may be in combat with others from time to time, but honestly, the real opponent is the self. I’ve spent many years discussing the mastery of the self, and I am such a long way from being there.
People tell me to back off, that I’ve done enough, it’s ok to rest. However, every day there’s more pain. Every day I would have to choose to ignore it and feel as if I’m running away or try to do something. I don’t have much left to give, but that’s still better than doing nothing. The country is being ripped apart at the seams, cheered on by victims of systems put in place generations ago to rob them while they’re trained to hate someone else. While they do share in the blame, we can pity them, for I’ve seen how easy it is to manipulate people’s fear in multiple countries and cultures, wartime, and peace.
I don’t want people to be scared. I don’t want to fight all the time. I want to be the peaceful, jovial, happy-go-lucky monk I show in the good times. Election day is sixty-eight days away, but these last four years have felt like lifetimes. Even if we overcome the GOP’s Russian backed efforts to steal the election, and we can take a collective sigh of relief, we still have so much work to do. Sometimes I think I’m doing better, but then I have moments when I discover I’m not. There is a path I want to walk, but passion pulls me from it, and the burden of guilt grows ever more massive.