Enter the Pity Party

Christmas Eve is a difficult time for me. It’s filled with festivities and starts off very fun, but typically ends very sullen. I drop my kids off with their mother after my family’s Christmas Eve gathering. I will have had “Christmas Morning” with the kids on that day, stating that Santa comes twice for them, explaining that half the gifts coming to Dad’s house and the other half will to their Mom’s. They’re still too little to understand it all so the explanations at this point are more for their Mother and I then anyone else. It’s practice for the next few years.

I feel that I’m very lucky to be in a situation where co-parenting is so prioritized and important and that at least for now I live just up the street from them and nearly see them every day. They’re so little though and even skipping a day can feel like an eternity. Parenting is cliché. It really is seeing your heart walking around outside of your body in the form of your children. My kids are safe, supported, and loved and that’s all I can ask for. I’m also in the fortunate position that my kids were born after my separating from the military. When I was in the Army I spent roughly 4 years overseas. My heart goes out to those people that have to spend years at a time away from their loved ones.

What I’m doing by the way is explaining how on Christmas Eve, I was feeling sorry for myself, because I wouldn’t be seeing my kids on Christmas day proper. I’m not very religious. I had a great 4 days with them and a wonderful Christmas celebration with all the fixings, just one day before. In reality I count my blessings and feel very fortunate. On this occasion though, after arriving home alone, having just left the family gathering and dropping off the kids, I was throwing myself a pity party. I decided to go out and in cliché fashion saddle up to a local drinking establishment and feel sorry for myself in the company of others.

Strange Company and Social Anxiety

I ordered a sandwich and a drink and stared at the TV. An older gentleman had sat down beside me. I didn’t know this guy but I decided to say “Happy Holidays” to him and we clanked our glasses together in typical fashion. I wasn’t in the mood for talking at first, but I am not one to be impolite.

This gentleman was nothing like me and the idea of starting a random conversation felt uncomfortable. When I have this uneasy feeling about something just because it feels outside of a comfort zone it’s usually to me an indicator that I should definitely do it (barring true safety and moral concerns).

I should state that I have a general social anxiety about starting conversations with anyone I don’t know. I can do it, and do it well though. If you put me in a random crowd with a purpose, I will eventually rise to the top and have everyone laughing and carrying on as to ease my own anxiety and feel like I have some control. I still hate doing it. I believe that this is a misconception that many closer friends and family have about me. Just because of the fact that I can work a room, does not mean that I want to.

It would be preferable to stay by myself and not say a thing, observing the people. I am at once seeking attention, and on the other hand exhausted by it should I get my wish. This is something I’ve fought my whole life to find balance in. In order to find that balance I have to force myself to make push through the social discomfort, attempt to listen more, and try to generally find interactions of substance in this fast food world. It has created this cycle for me of taking leadership roles requiring massive amounts of social interaction and extroversion, followed by long periods of being alone and introspective.

But I digress. I did force myself to break the ice and I’m glad that I did. We started off having a very typical “so what do you do?” introduction. I found out that he had just gotten off of work at a local restaurant. We discussed several things; general socio-political things. This is always pleasant especially knowing that we were completely different in backgrounds. We found out that we had a lot in common philosophically. Not only that, but we actually had a mutual acquaintance that had once worked with him.

Mutual Acquaintances

This particular friend is one that has gone down a path that I feel disappointed about. He had every privilege and every opportunity to succeed. He was bailed out of his own misdoings so many times and yet still continued to not help himself. This was also not a stupid person either. I had watched this bright eyed twenty year old alpha male with his whole future ahead of him repeatedly make the same mistakes, alienate friends, and eventually become a shell of his former self in his early 40s; His health, relationships, and opportunities drying up in his wake.

We talked about this guy for a while, slowly getting deeper into it once we realized that we each knew him fairly well (one does not simply out the kinds of things we talked about without establishing that the other party already knows). The conversation was from a place of concern and general heart felt well wishing. I had since divorced myself from that friendship as it was toxic, however I still had genuine hope that the guy would at some point get himself together. I had watched him spiral for so long that I had to walk away from the friendship.

“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves.” I stated, justifying my exit from the relationship.

We clanked glasses again on this note and the gentleman added, “You know man, I think that generally, people always get what they want.”

People always get what they want

I can only imagine that my eyes lit up with mad glee as this statement digested. That madness would eventually become this essay.

“People get what they want. Hm, Holy shit, thank you.” I said after a moment. “You sir, are a stoic philosopher.”

We talked for a little bit longer about this, chatted about various other things, and eventually he finished his drink and went on his way. I believe I had made a friend.

At any rate, we now get to the core of this essay, which came to me so suddenly and randomly from a person who stated so eloquently and succinctly a truth of the universe. That truth is that people generally get exactly what they want.

I’m not talking about the randomness of the universe or getting hit by a bus or getting cancer. What I am picking at are people that externalize the modus of their failure. I’m talking about the person who from moment to moment obeys impulse over the long term goal. Generally in that moment you are getting exactly what you want. Whether it’s another drink, another partner in bed, another cigarette, high, chocolate chip cookie…whatever; anything on the spectrum of immediate choice from the severe to less serious and all in between.

I’m also not talking about the half-hearted fantasy based, “I wish I had a million dollars”. These are things that you flippantly say you want but really are hoping a lottery or stroke of luck will bring them to you.

What I’m talking about is genuinely deciding what you want and working toward it. If you did truly WANT a million dollars, what are you doing to get it? Also, do you actually want the million dollars or does one million dollars represent something else to you like financial freedom and not worrying about debt?

If you aren’t actively working towards something that you say you want then obviously (to me), you must not want it that badly. As you read this some of you are already churning excuses as to why you can’t have the thing that you want, to which I say, “You must not want it”. But you did want everything you said yes to that day. I get it; you don’t WANT to work at that shitty job therefore my argument doesn’t hold water to you. But yes, you do WANT to be able to pay your bills so therefore in a way you do want to work at that shitty job. You don’t WANT to go to the dentist, but you do WANT to keep your teeth healthy.

Don’t overthink it. Making arguments and excuses is easy. Deciding what you actually want is not. What’s even trickier is the fact that what you want is not a still target. It can evolve with you as you move toward or away from it. If you don’t know what you want then you (at least I do) tend to live in a hellish limbo where life doesn’t hold meaning or seems arduous. Then all choices made are based off of short term wants.

That’s what it boils down to. Once you know what you actually want then you can move towards it with single minded purpose. Everything in the way of something you truly want is simply a problem to be solved. They are obstacles in your “Tough Mudder” of life. What I do know is if you keep making the same choices over and over that are wrong, you must want that short term whatever much more than the larger goal you have in mind. So figure out what you want and ask why you want it.

The interesting thing is that the WHY you want the thing you want is the ACTUAL thing you want, so don’t get hung up on the method of delivery.

Magic Universe Voodoo

It just so happens that if you get what you want from making the right choices, that the universe will line things up so that you tend to get more of what you want. Call it crazy karma. Call it synchronicity, but it seems to me that the more you do to invest into your bank of doing constructive work towards what you really want, the more interest will accrue in your account, making future wants even easier to attain.

Remember the sage like words of the random wise stranger “People generally get what they want”.