There are times in your life where you learn what
true Hell on earth is. Times when you are faced with
the unthinkable--a modern day "Sophie's Choice"--
that has no winning answer, and yet a decision must
surely be made.
We may discover that such harsh realities leave us
face-to-face with how truly alone we are. No one can
aid in such a decision-making process; no priest, no
spouse, no best friend. To enter another into the
process of making an untenable choice means we
may burden them with unfounded upset, should the
solution they offer turn out disastrously. And no one
can know our heart or needs as we do, so advice is
essentially meaningless.
No, in the final analysis, there is only us. Most people
want nothing to do with another's drama and pain
anyway, so no prob there.
You reach a place in life where you realize the really
big choices are rife with pain and blood sacrifice,
and that no matter how careful you are, somebody
always gets hurt.
And that selfishness you always heard about being
evil and negative? Not true. Selfishness is required
for survival. Selfishness is required to make unenviable
choices. In the end, selfishness is all we have.
No lover, no parent, no friend, no partner will stay with
you til the end. Only you.
No one can understand and care for you the way you
know to do.
To sacrifice your own happiness and needs in the
effort to do what others and society consider right is
heresy.
When love and compassion turn to Obligation, it is
the End of all Goodness. There can be no winning if
our lives are no longer our own, and we feel fated
to carry duty out as if cosmic burden.
Those parents that tell you they're staying together
for the kids' benefit? Bullshit. They're afraid of doing
what's necessary, and understandably so; it's like
dissecting a living being to cut apart a relationship
ensconced in years of tears and dedication. It's like
committing Hara-kiri and then still moving on.
But no child (or former child) will tell you that 'having
parents who hate each other and pursue a loveless
marriage' is preferable to having divorced parents.
No child wants to live in a house with forced emotions
and secrets and lies, or the stench of bitterness and
rage barely suppressed. False pretenses and manipulation
are not tools to teach children, not if we wish them well
and balanced. (Kids are smarter than we give them
credit for anyway!)
But it's not just marriages, or marriages with kids.
We have all kinds of intense relations which become
more onus than benefit. Even a job we have committed
our time and energy to can seem like a Life Sentence.
A town we just can't seem to escape from, a habit we
can't seem to break. Prisons come in every form and
variety.
Your soul can't afford to stay where it isn't respected
or loved or fulfilled. Love is not about endless catering
and changing and giving up of dreams.
No, Obligation is a relationship-killer even though the
corpse still walks and talks. Like most of life, it is an
illusion that fills us with false hope and merely
betrays the reality underneath.
When we have to decide, best to decide for Self and
no other, for we reap the consequences of our momentary
decisions for a lifetime. No matter how much consideration,
worry, or fear is involved, we end up in the same place
doing the same dance in the end; not knowing Jack Shit
about what will result from our choices in advance.
numbers on the front end of a choice; 50/50.
There is no way to know what will become of us and
those we know after a choice is made...after action is
taken....after our needs and wants are actualized rather
than debated and considered.
In the end, our only responsibility is to ourselves. Like
the story of the crashing plane and the oxygen masks,
if the caregiver can't do it for themselves first, there
really isn't much point to it being done at all. Sacrificing
one's own happiness (for sure) to attempt another's
happiness (as uncertain possibility) is ludicrous.
None of this insight makes the trauma of this endless
emotional nightmare of filtering information feel less
like one of the famous film-Aliens bursting through our
chests. In fact, the overt physical pain of such an event
might be desirable, so at least our inner turmoil was
being witnessed by the world....some sick sense of
validation for the suffering we were enduring.
Rip the band-aid off.
Life is short. We have to make decisions we can live with.
Things change, people grow apart. Life is evolution.
This is hard because even when we feel our current
situation is intolerable, we don't know what the reality
of the new situation will be. Is what we tolerate now magic
compared to what is to come? Are we leaving frying pan
for fire? When we reach a point where we simply cannot
tolerate any more, we may find there is strength in faith
and hope that we didn't know existed. Staying still and
avoiding the conflict is soul-maddening and soul-deadening
too.
But in the end, after we face our dark night of the soul, we
realize that change is the undeniable aspect to all life.
To deny this fundamental reality is to give way to insanity.
It's only Ego that makes us think anyone or anything could
not survive without our influence and presence.
Our only true commitment must be to self, lest everything
falls to pieces. No matter how hard that decision is to make,
or what must be sacrificed in the equation.
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