Sabotage

Sometimes they're just funny, heartwarming or occasionally a little sad. In addition to that, they really make me think about life. This was one of those. You should go read it (click above).

I feel like I do the exact same thing in my life. It's not something I have noticed much in the past, but it's been something I've been thinking about a lot this past week. How odd that someone would blog about it.

I'd never thought about the reason why I'm sabotaging myself. The following paragraph from Jacob really describes my situation:

"See, I need to feel like I am living my life, instead of my life controlling me. I need to feel like my choices actually do something, that they have the power to affect and improve my life experience. When I begin to feel like I am no longer running things, I do the only thing that emphatically proves that my choices have repercussions: I sabotage. Myself."

I don't think I've ever thought of my unhappiness and my self destructive attitudes and actions as a reaction to feeling out of control (or at least I have never acknowledged a direction connection), but it really is. In high school I hated the fact that I was unable to control where I would be living next month let alone the ability to see and socialize with people my own age. Now I feel out of control to support myself (without a job) and powerless to get a job for the next month and a half (it just jumped up from two weeks to a month and a half). I feel out of control to make relationships. I feel out of control in relating to God on a consistently meaningful level. I feel out of control of my emotions. Consequently, I sabotage myself. At least I can control that, right?

This past week and a half I have found myself eating bad food and drinking non-diet soda like crazy. I know I'm gaining weight. It makes me depressed, yet I continue to eat like crazy. In some odd way, I feel like I'm punishing myself. At least I can be in control of my eating. It has to stop. It's not healthy - physically or psychologically.

I'm not exactly sure where to take this. Is my unhappiness and depression self-inflicted sabotage? Is it something that subconsciously I'm doing to myself? I was doing the over-eating thing several days before I realized consciously what I was doing. Am I making myself miserable and withdrawing from people because I feel like that's what I deserve?

I am so sick and tired of feeling unhappy. I am tired of feeling worthless and disliked. I'm told by people that it's a choice and that people don't view me the way I view myself. If that's true, then why can't I just choose to be happy? If that's true, then why do I get the vibes from people - especially people I went to college with - that they don't like me and don't want to give me the time of day?

Is it really a choice? I get so mad at people when they tell me that. I'm like, seriously, do you think I enjoy living life like this? Do you think I'm intentionally choosing this? But what if they are right? What if I am choosing to live a miserable, self-destructive life? What if I get to the end of my life and see that I wasted it being miserable and assuming the worst of myself and other people?

How does one make a choice? How does one completely switch their view on the world, relationships and the very essence of who they are? The question that haunts me the most - that holds me back - is: What if I give it a wholehearted attempt, only to see that nothing changes and that there's just something inherently wrong with me? Somehow, it feels better to not try and to never know... Yet that brings me back to the question of when I'm old and gray, what will it be like to look back and realize I could have made a choice and had a better life?