About every six months or so I find myself in a position where I am grossly unhappy with certain aspects of my life and my relationships with people begin to falter as I fall deeper and deeper into the hole. I start behaving more and more like an arsehole. Then right as I feel like I am about to bury myself I decide “Fuck it, had enough of this shit, I’m moving!”. For the first time in a very long time I am now finding that I am having to find ways of resolving particular situations that don’t involve booking a plane ticket to somewhere else. And it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. Because not only do I not know where to start with fixing anything, it is hard to know which battles are lost and which are worth fighting for. Which ones you can turn around and change, and which ones you should just walk away from.

As work and home become equal contenders in the category of “places I really don’t want to be or have to deal with right now”, one must sit back and decide “Do I stick it out? Or do I change the things I am unhappy with?” Better yet, “What is it that I can actually change that may make my life a little easier?”

The first I discovered is my attitude. My attitude sucks right now. I will be the first to admit it. And as things get worse, my attitude gets worse. At some point, this cycle needs to be broken. Some say meditation helps, however I think I would find myself in the same position as my friend a couple of years ago yelling at the meditation man “Stop telling me to calm the fuck down! I am calm! If you tell me to be calm one more time I will ram your head through the wall!” The only ways I can think of right now are 1. Retreating into myself for a while and not having contact or conversations with people to avoid said situations until they blow over and are forgotten about or 2. Manning the fuck up and accepting responsibility for my shit behaviour in the hope that the people I am dealing with aren’t petty grudge holders. From my dealings with many, I find grudge holding to be huge. Which is quite sad because those that hold grudges are generally more miserable than those that aren’t.

Then as I go into fixing messes head first, because that is how I deal with everything I remember something that my Dad told me after his many years of life experience. In his wisdom he once told me ‘2 days. Everything is usually better after 2 days. So if you can just hold on for that 2 days and work through it, then you will be just fine’. And right he is. In those 2 days proceeding the point where I hit perceived rock bottom, I managed to claw my way out of it. As I always do.

Despite the fact that I still have this nagging urge to go somewhere else, I am now realizing that it is my choice to enjoy the right now where I am until then. It is my choice in how I respond to other people. It is my choice of how I let others treat me. And mostly, it is my own choice how it is that I manage my attitude. Because 100% of life is about how you tackle what it is that life throws your way, shitty curveballs and all. So game on, bring it!