There is no guidebook on How to be a Person
Life was hard for me, and I was convinced that life was easy for everyone else. I must just be doing it wrong.
“If you are uncomfortable—in deep pain, angry, yearning, confused—you don’t have a problem, you have a life. Being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong, it’s hard because you’re doing it right. You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy.”
I spent much of my life looking around and thinking that each person who passed me on the street, everyone I saw on television, every single person sitting in that coffee shop, sipping lattes, had it all figured out.
I thought they must have been handed this guidebook called How to be a Person. It covered how to not get overwhelmed by the thought that their dog will die one day, and how to pick the appropriate clothes for the weather. There must be chapters on how to not get so anxious that they wanted to rip their skin off, and how to put together a nice cheese plate. They never felt fear or jealousy or anger and it was all easy for them.
And there they were, keeping their shit together and sipping their lattes.
It was easy for them. It was hard for me. They were doing it right. I was doing it wrong.
Lol. What an ego I had, thinking that I was the only one…
The tiny piece of truth in my massively misguided thinking is that not everyone feels things in the same way. Highly sensitive people tend to feel more deeply. Some of us are hardwired for depression or anxiety. But that doesn’t mean that we’re doing it wrong. It also doesn’t mean that life is easy for the latte-sippers.
If we understand that the challenges are part of the deal, not indications that we are universally screwed, things get a little bit easier. It is pointless to waste our energy on thinking that we’re the only ones who don’t have bright green arrows lighting our path forward. Instead, we can take that energy and put it towards figuring out which way we actually want to go.
You are not broken. You are not dysfunctional. You are human.
No one got a guidebook. Nobody has all the answers. We’re all flailing here.
So let’s flail with a little more grace and compassion. That way we won’t spill our lattes.
