The Addiction To Problems

It is truly a tragedy when a man chooses the comfort of remaining weak when he could instead enter into the challenges of adversity to make himself strong.

This statement came out of my mouth in the midst of a discussion the other day regarding people who prefer the comfort they find in their problems and their unresolved trauma instead of working towards improvement. It's like an addiction really. The addiction of talking about your problems, your aches and pains, and your past trauma. People hold on to these things like security blankets because they see these things as reasons, not excuses, actual fortified reasons, why their lives are the way they are. And what do addicts often do? They look for other addicts to commiserate with. They stand in circles, waiting for their turn to feed their addiction one more time. Similarly there’s the addition of holding on to past trauma, or more often than not it is the creation or exaggeration of past trauma so they can fit in. I remember seeing this phenomena a few years after Gulf War 2.0 popped off. Guys would get their DD214 and enter into a world where serving in the military was a true sacrifice and veterans were honored. But for the weak that wasn’t enough. I hate to use the term PTSD because it has become so far reaching and diluted its offensive but It's what I got… so the guys would throw around the term PTSD and watch as the attention rolled in. Before you knew it that was something to throw in your social media profile to get women to slide into your messages. Now it's moved to the youth. It's cool to have anxiety and depression and a whole series of self-diagnosed and self-imposed afflictions.

We all have problems. We all have at some point faced suffocating adversity that seemed insurmountable. We all have endured various levels of trauma if we include a bullying incident when you were 9 or stubbing your toe at 3 a.m. on your way to the bathroom when at age 42. Yes, I am mocking a portion of people who claim "trauma" because we have come way too far to the wrong side of mental toughness and ability to handle any sort of adversity it's disgusting. But I digress, my point is that there are those who love to sit in their bullshit and indulge in the “poor me” mindset. It's an addiction and it is one that can be overcome. You are not defined by your problems, your trauma, or your afflictions; don’t care if its diagnosed or otherwise. You have the ability to step out of the comfort of self-pity and work to improve yourself in every aspect every day.

This is about the time the “But how? It’s so hard? You don’t understand” people show up.

Solutions seem self-evident but lets touch on a couple.

1. I always work to challenge myself in all aspects of life both mentally and physically. I will take a problem or conflict in my life and start thinking of ways to address it. I will break it down and examine every part. I will take ownership of all of it as I feel that regardless of the situation, problem, or whatever, everything can be traced back to me. I then start lining things up with my values (hard coded ideology from which all decisions, both words and actions, are ultimately made and judged by) and see what can be sorted out. Then start taking action.
2. Discipline, you don’t give yourself a choice. Your feelings do not dictate anything.

Weakness in all its forms is a virus. Remove yourself from the infected. You have an obligation to yourself to do so.