I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who often lacks the confidence to just do what I want to. In fact, I’m no psychiatrist, but it has become evident to me that hardly anyone I have met has some sort of mood disorder or drug dependency. About a year ago, to be honest I’m not sure what exactly I would have thought because of the long term memory loss that comes with abusing narcotics, but I know I never would have admitted that I thought my addiction to feeling high. Then it hit me that I wasn’t nearly as alone or as special as I thought. I’ve been struggling through mixed emotions, and was convinced for years that the world was just a bad place in general without realizing that shutting yourself out or lowering your standards is no way to make it better. I’m not saying I have had this sudden revelation and everything is better now, but I’m learning that I don’t have to pick an identity to feel happy I just need to feel happy.

It’s difficult because it sounds too simple, and it obviously isn’t since most of us are unhappy with our lives in one way or another and either lie to ourselves or find some way to cope. To disagree with that is simply denial of reality or being completely emotionally dethatched from it. Some of us become victims of circumstance and end up completely powerless, and some step up and fake it until they make it. The latter sounds braver but the former seems more honest though neither is necessarily productive. I realize there are a multitude of scenarios that I could not even imagine and backgrounds that shape people in a way I could really only attempt to understand at best. However, the common root of mostly all emotional problems is most simply put feeling as though you are supposed to be something without considering why.

We’ve stopped thinking critically in more ways than one and it’s perpetuated the myth that ignorance is bliss. It’s a problem that can potentially be fixed by heeding the advice of many great thinkers such as Margaret Mead when she said “children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” We all are more ignorant than we think some in a way that projects itself as unearned cockiness and others a severe lack of self-awareness. These are the most common personality traits that I find to be both the result and cause of this cycle of a growing increasingly depressed population. I by no means would say I’ve mastered the balance of questioning, but I think once we start to understand reality we are a lot less self-doubting.

The trick is to understand that your reality is just that, and a different one exists for each person none of whom know the real truth. I personally, much like many of my peers, suffer from questioning everything to a point of doubting my own self and worrying too much that I don’t know what to believe. Therefore we choose to believe nothing at all, a lot of the time figuring the only answer is to turn off our emotions typically with drugs prescribed by doctors who evidently agree. We appear to either be too afraid to be wrong to even tune in or we adhere to one thing that gives us a false sense of purpose that is not ultimately fulfilling for most.

It is hard to be honest with people about feeling lost in the world sometimes, I find, when you feel as though it is a complaint. Ironically, however I think tuning into your own emotions and allowing them to guide you is as important as staying aware of the often unpleasant reality that we may or may not have control over. The thing we do however, have control over, is how we choose to respond to our emotions and it is very difficult but once a balance is found between remaining aware of our responsibilities to ourselves and to nature to leave some kind of impact behind and remembering that life is ultimately not worth enjoying.

I was just touched by this notion as I hit what I would consider to be a very low point in my life and found myself often shutting down emotions that were too strong about things I felt I couldn’t impact. Then I realized if everybody felt that way no progress would be made and, not to undermine many excellent accomplishments in human history, but we still haven’t mastered becoming at peace with ourselves. Once we are we will know, because it will finally allow for a peaceful world that we no longer have to blame for our sadness.

Knowing that you can do whatever you would like in this world seems like a cliché term that we say to kids but don’t actually teach them as they grow older and are often directed down a path chosen for them. However, I know that everyone has the capabilities to believe that but some are too far gone to be convinced. I often feel I am or like I need some sort of mood drug to make me “normal,” and functional in society. I think if you can at least acknowledge the truth to the fact that there is no normal you have to use that gift to make a world more live able for those who aren’t so fortunate to ever see that. We have to acknowledge that the entire human population has a consumption control problem that is as destructive to the rest of the ecosystem that we share with billions of other earthlings as the emotional damage that we are causing and it often feels like to be a good person is impossible in a bad world but we would be doing ourselves and others a huge disservice by trying to ignore it.