You’ll never get out of this world alive
Day 122 / 365
Everything’s agin me and it’s got me down
If I jumped in the river I would probably drown
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive — Hank Williams
There’s a great Jerry Seinfeld bit about how every one of us just wants to escape the present moment. You wait all week for Friday to arrive and you are excited to go out and party with your friends. But then you get to the party and soon enough you find yourself wanting to get back home again.
Why is it that we hate our present situation 99% of the time? Why does the grass always look greener on the other side? How do we get out of this mess?
Well here’s my 2 cents on this.
First of all, forget about escaping the present. It’s impossible. The present moment is all we have, so we have to learn to accept and live in it. I might not be as optimistic as I once used to be, but I still think hitting rock bottom is such a bad thing. People think it’s the end of the world, It can’t get any worse than this. But that’s the thing, it can’t get any worse! When you’ve hit rock bottom, the only way you can go is up!
Second thing, stop holding on to the past. The sooner you can do that, the sooner you’ll get rid of this shitty feeling that everything’s wrong with your life. The future’s uncertain and so it scares us. The past’s known and comfortable, the good parts at least. And that’s the thing, we have a bias towards remembering just the good stuff. No matter the average present won’t please us. But the bottom line is, you can do nothing about the past, but you can do a lot about the future.
And last but not least, don’t get annoyed by problems. There’s a name for a place where people have no problems, it’s a graveyard. For as long as you are alive you’ll face problems. Sometimes small, sometimes big. But you gotta face’em head on, learn from them and grow. Just sitting and complaining about them will never get you anywhere.
I’m not gonna worry wrinkles in my brow
’Cause nothin’s ever gonna be alright no-how
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive
This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here
Yesterday’s blog — Why does New Zealand have so strict customs?