Decay

I spoke with a friend recently about some current events. A Tesla factory in Germany had halted production of it’s cars because of suspected arson.

“Good,” they said.

Maybe they were just tired and wanted something to shock me with. I’ve been known to say outlandish things in an effort to pull peoples minds into a state of awareness, but this is not the first time they’d painted a negativite thing in a positive light.

When we spoke again later, my friend was happy to say they wanted to make enough money to not do anything at all. If they had the option they’d stop working right now and relax. They aren’t the only person I’ve had this conversation with. Others too would be more than happy to just check out from society. Live on their own and kick back, doing absolutely nothing but relaxing and playing games.

It strikes me as odd. I’d love the ability to not need to work for someone else either, but only because of how much time I’d be given to chase down my whims or other passions. I’m not sure why someone would want to choose a sedentary life over one that kept their gears turning to even a small degree. Though, I do see a commonality between all of these people who have expressed these same desires to me.

They seem to be stuck in a depressive mood. It saddens me to some degree, these are generally friendly people who have a lot of potential and given the opportunity they would just quit. Not just quit their current work, but they’d quit working entirely.

I’m saddened at this because I get stuck in similar ruts on occasion. I didn’t have a lot of self confidence when I was growing up. This was due to a number of factors, but over the thirty years of my life I have been able to understand a bit of why I become negative and how to recognize and fight it.

Positivity is easier said than done when you’re in a rut, but it’s worth a shot. Sometimes you’ll find that just changing your mind about the day can have a profound impact on the rest of it. That could even snowball into having a great week and beyond.

But, ultimately one of the most effective things in killing negativity is to figure out the root cause of the current rut and do something about it. We need to be persistant.

When happy thoughts can’t fight the bad days sometimes it’s better to just get working. Logically figure out what your goals are and just take whatever small step you can towards them. At the very least you can say you’ve attempted it and that may be enough. Soon you will be taking multiple steps with each attempt until you can work your way out of it. The bottom line is these ruts, sadness, etc. are all states of decay for us. We ultimately can not sustain decay. We must fight against it and grow. We must build.

We are living things, we require success, building things. We need to be curious, inventive, constructive. As individuals we need to strive to be net benefits to the space and time we are given in life. We owe it to ourselves, if no one else. So build! If you have free time, use it to make some fun for yourself; discover something new.

Note: This is not suggestive of being a replacement for mental health therapy. If you think you are depressed you may want to speak to a professional about that, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.