Life is Difficult
I have to be honest, once I gave into the idea that I was gay, I thought that life would be easier. It’s everything you always read about and it comes in slogans such as “The truth will set you free!” But, what if all those feel good slogans, were just that, feel good slogans. I have been battling Manic Depression for about 13 years now. I have gone to countless doctors and therapy in hope of a cure, but there really is no cure. After three years of being on Anti-Depressants, two months ago I decided to quit taking my medicine. Isn’t it time to deal with life on life’s terms? Going off my medicine has been an emotional roller coaster ride, but overall I have been pretty steady. I can tell you that I feel completely different now, different in a good way. I can see that I became much more intellectually capable, more energetic, and upbeat, but I would be lying to you if I failed to mentioned that I had periods of mania of being real high (Try staying up for two days straight) and real low. In the last two months, I see myself, relying much more on a spiritual cure. Maybe here is where one of those feel good slogans is applicable, “Let go, and let God.” Yes, I thought things would get easier, but they didn’t. As oppose to being married and sharing a life with someone, I am now middle-aged and living alone. My old set of friends no longer call me, as with how things go in a divorce, they rallied to “her side.” I am living on a single family income as oppose to a dual spouse income, well, this list could go on and on, but why there are feel good slogans all around us, I did read many years ago some of the best advice I have ever been given, and I keep coming back to it time after time. It comes from M. Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled: “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share. Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them? Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can only solve some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems. What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending upon their nature, evoke in us frustration or grief or sadness or loneliness or guilt or regret or anger or fear or anxiety or anguish or despair. These are uncomfortable feelings, often very uncomfortable, often as painful as any kind of physical pain. Indeed, it is because of the pain that events or conflicts engender in us all that we call them problems. And, since life poses an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy. Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we can grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school we deliberately set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt, instruct.” It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually welcome the pain of problems. Most of us are not so wise. Fearing the pain involved, almost all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid problems. We procrastinate, hoping that they will go away. We ignore them, forget them, pretend they do not exist. We even take drugs to assist us in ignoring them, so that by deadening ourselves to the pain we can forget problems that cause the pain. We attempt to skirt around problems depending upon their nature, rather than meet them head on. We attempt to get out of them rather than suffer through them.” I needed my little Peck talk this morning, because now, I have to deal with a home contractor who ran off with my $10,000. I will most assuredly will be suffering through this problem today. Yesterday, I was pretty angry, but today, I see that I am going to work my way through this problem, and that feels good, and life will become a little less difficult.
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Christian Cantu
Coming Out Late Archives
December 2019
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