“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

For a long period of my life I have struggled with depression and so with lack or very low energy. I have had periods when I was feeling very motivated and driven, and periods when I couldn’t do anything. I graduated from college and also got a Master’s degree and after that I didn’t knew what to do with my life. It felt like I was stuck in an endless cycle of chasing something, some sort of society approval and I needed to stop that. I could see how wrong our society had become and I didn’t want to be part of that.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti

So I ended up, trapped in another illusion, my addictions. I started to chase other kinds of pleasures, instant gratification pleasures. As time gone by, my addictions were overwhelming and I was only after the highs. I wasn’t physically addicted, but more mentally. We numb ourselves just to stop feeling bad, and in contrast we think we are feeling good, but it’s only the illusion of feeling good.

“Let go of all ideas and images in your mind, they come and go and aren’t even generated by you. So why pay so much attention to your imagination when reality is for the realizing right now?” Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing

At some point I began to realize that I was stuck in another cycle, and the only way to grow, was to break the cycle. To break it, and to come back to what? I wasn’t able to see other solutions and most of the time I felt extremely down. Because we are programmed by our society to feel bad if we do not have the things that are important in society, like money, fame, looks, careers, etc.

So for about a year or so, after realizing that I was again in another trap, I continued my instant gratification approach to life. It made sense for me to change, but it was very hard and the pleasure was very easy to get, so I remained in my numbed world. But I tried to remember, and made me feel good that “The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -”.

A month ago, after many other failed attempts to decide to be better, I started to be more serious about my process of transformation. I want to see who I really am, who am I without the things that society defines me.

I know it’s a long process and I am sure I will come to realize that there are many more layers to be crossed, but I do not want to hide behind some illusion of “feeling good”. When you become sober you realize that there is no way, nowhere to run away from yourself, so you need to face yourself and ask so many questions.

I think it’s very important to be kind and gentle, and to approach yourself with love. To be grateful that now you had come to realize the things that you do, and not blame yourself for the things that you have done and thought in the past. They were needed in order for you to feel the way you do know.

There are moments when I lose these types of perspectives, but I come back more easily to them now. I think that is important just to want to change, and the change has already began, even if we do not feel it immediately.

“The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”

― Alan W. Watts