Persevere is such an interesting word.
According to the dictionary, it’s from the latin perseverare: per=through, severus=severe. Oh yeah, it’s severe alright.
Why do people persevere with situations that are toxic? Let’s poke me some more and find out.
My life has become a holding pattern and it’s starting to suck. I drag myself through the same miserable job, day after day, to what end? I’m not going anywhere. What am I gaining? Perseverance? Why? I persevere, then I die, then what? (well sidenote -- i think I'll float around for a bit, assessing the fact that i just did a life of nothing, then come back and try not to do nothing again, but that’s just me, and probably a whole other post waiting to happen…).
On all sides I have people telling me to stop doing it, stop persevering -- my own little voice agrees, and yet I do it anyway.
It’s fear. I don’t back myself enough. I’m afraid to step off the edge of the precipice into the unknown because I can’t see how far the drop is. The catch is I’m never going to find out until I just take the damn step. Who knows, I might have a latent ability to fly that’s been waiting to surface since I hit puberty. Maybe I’m a lost X-Men.
This must happen the world over; scores of people stuck in lives they have no care for, doing tasks that bring them no joy, in jobs that hasten their sad slide into death through fatigue, misery and depression. And they keep on at it, because they think they have to, because that’s what they think life is.
Everyone agrees with the vague idea that the main goal in life is happiness, and yet we so often turn our backs on what makes us happy to persevere with what is, instead. So many unfulfilled people with so many dreams collecting dust. And I’m one of them.
Our poor muses must be banging their heads against the wall they skated out from, waiting for us to wake up (hmm, Xanadu flashback…).
There’s another thought that holds me back. I’m afraid if I start doing what I love it will turn into a ‘career’, a ‘job’ and I will grow to hate it. After all I’ve had such bad experiences with careers and jobs up to now, who’s to say it will be any different? The odds are against me.
But I think that’s just another excuse conjured from my brain to make me feel ok with my perseverance. It’s my brain offering up the blue pill of ignorance in order for me to keep functioning in a listless life. Heaven forbid I take the red pill, hop on the rollercoaster of the fulfilled and finally see the view from the top.
Sometimes I feel I have to kick myself in the proverbial and be reminded that this world is here for me too. The world doesn’t need anymore wallflowers. There’s only one Me, and I’m sure the world would appreciate a bit of Me.
The next hard bit is finding out what the Me is. When I do, you’ll be the second person to know.
2 comments:
I've got a question for you, Mel. Don't answer it right now. Think on it and get back to me later:
Why do you think that you don't deserve happiness?
Mel, if you find a way out, you let me know, huh?
And I hear you on the "Will I just grow to despise it like every other job I've had?" portion. Me in a nutshell.
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