A lot of you guys have seen me bump around on the forums. I was divorced in 2017, and there were a few years' of adjustment. I used to come home at night, all alone. I cried enough tears to fill an abyss. But time heals that, and a little help from above helps too. I prayed to God to decrease my loneliness, and in return, I'd do a reboot. That reboot lasted for 233 days, hard mode. That was 2020. The times when I came home feeling lonely were markedly different. I didn't have a woman, but it didn't hurt to be alone either. When I came home, instead of dwelling on what I didn't have, I started looking forward to the solitude. The freedom was incredible, endless. Mostly I used that space to create music. I wrote, practiced, recorded, mixed, mastered, wrote lyrics, whatever. As the mega-reboot of 2020 soldiered on, I became more detached from these empty feelings of worthlessness, remorse and the tendency to ruminate was gone. I stopped living in the past. That pattern was the anchor of my pain. Ruminate, interestingly enough, is another word for when cattle "chews the cud". In rumination, a cow regurgitates their food back up and swallows it again. It makes the end result of meat healthier and tastier. But ruminating over the past is a deadly trap for a porn addict. I was pulled by that gravity for years. The reason was because I was trying to fix my past by reliving it. It's also called "Monday morning quarterbacking". MMQ is what happens on job sites and cubicals the first day after the last football game. Every accountant knows better than Peyton Manning how to pass, of course. While a fun topic, most people who are lonely, divorced, broken up, or lost someone special, will sooner or later take the time machine in reverse. Can someone ruminate in a healthy way? I say no. Because every party was too over the top, and should have been more mellow. Every girl and guy got into weird or bad situations, and they could not figure that out at the time. And that is where the porn addict takes incredible solace. They must be able to realize that they don't know the situation in hindsight as well. Hindsight is 1,000,000/20 or legally blind. Or, they need to just accept that they made a mistake, and since it is in the past, forgive themselves. Because nobody runs a perfect life. Life is brutal, tragic, confusing, contradictory and imperfect. We try to adapt to situations, but most of the time the best result is an epic fail. The person who says to themselves, "I failed at that in the past, but today, I will try again," does win out over time. Especially in the case of college or high school students who have messed up a relationship! Come on, man, get some perspective! Most guys are a blunderbuss in the love department! I have been rejected, ignored, laughed at, embarrassed, and abandoned! Sometimes I got more love from a dumpster than from a woman! Right? So drop the pity party. Time to get a hard mode reboot, face up to the pain, while adding some healthy diet and fitness habits. Work hard, and don't be afraid to say NO. (unless of course you are a hot woman I'm asking out..... JK....)
I used to know a guy that would liked to say "what could of happened did happen". I don't know if that's true or not, but it is a useful thought when I find myself replaying mistakes over and over again in my mind. Put the pity pot in a cabinet, up on the top shelf so its hard to reach, and get back to work. Your success is our success and ours is yours.
It’s always bothered me some because I want to believe I could have done better. But if I could have, if I had had the capacity to get the results that I wanted, then I would have. So it fits. Get clear about what you want and do what it takes to get it. The past isn’t an obstacle unless we make it one.
