Life Is What You Make It

Many of us are too afraid to live life. Life happens and we don’t know how to handle it, so we desperately run away as fast as possible. And—sadly-- we even run away when life is presenting us with what we’ve really wanted, like a serious, loving relationship.

I know too many people who have ended good relationships, even marriages, because they were too afraid to be involved in anything so intimate, even though their true-selves really wanted the intimacy. Unfortunately, their addictive-selves were frightened beyond reason and in the driver’s seat. So they zoomed off at 100 miles per hour out of the relationship. They allowed all of their addictive fears to escalate into self-destruct mode and they did everything in their power to alienate the other person.

For example, let’s say Jared has been head-over-heals for Angela for a couple of years. He’s always suspicious of her, however, because she’s a very attractive girl and he’s heard some rumors about her past behavior with men. During their dating period, they have some knock-out, drag-out fights over Jared’s jealousy. It seems like almost every week, he’s accusing Angela of being unfaithful. He may make a comment, or he may say something accusatory with his body language or mood swings. Still, when he pops the question Angela says “Yes” because Jared promises her that he really loves her and things will be different once they are married.

The “happy” couple ties the knot, but it doesn’t take too long before things are back to uncomfortable. Deep-down, Jared still doesn’t trust Angela. And to make matters worse, he’s still constantly looking for proof that Angela is unfaithful. Every day he’s hoping to find some little clue to prove to himself that he is right, that she’s a no-good tramp and that he should pick up and leave her. Over a period of three or four years, Angela can no longer take Jared’s lack of faith in her. She’s tired of being mistreated. She has been faithful to him and she still loves him, but it’s obvious to her now that he doesn’t really love her. Instead, he places much more value on proving his rightness about his imaginary belief that she is unfaithful. So Angela moves out and files for divorce.

Immediately, Jared feels victorious and relieved. “Yes,” he exclaims to himself, “I was right or she wouldn’t have left me.” But as time passes and Jared begins to get a bit of his sanity back, he realizes that he hadn’t scored a victory at all. Angela had still maintained her innocence, and, to make reality worse, Jared realizes that none of his suspicions were backed-up with any tangible proof. It had all been a crazy innuendo in his head that he had been listening to—even friends had tried to convince him of that and he had refused to listen.

The marriage is over and Jared realizes that Angela had nothing to do with the marriage failing. He had created a nightmare all of his own making. Why? Jared asks himself “Why? Why was I so hell-bent on proving that Angela was guilty of infidelity, instead of being hell-bent on believing that she was a good faithful partner?” Jared doesn’t immediately know the answer to this question, but it definitely resides inside of him. It has something to do with his childhood, his own negative beliefs about himself and a deep-seated fear of abandonment. All of these work against him to make him want to push people away from him.

Jared, like so many people, is too afraid to live life even when life is perfect. And his fears have nothing to do with life or the world or Angela. They have everything to do with Jared, his overpowering anxious feelings and his fear of not being worthy of being loved and valued by others. These deep anxious feelings drive him into a high-gear fear of abandonment, which then causes him to push people away. He abandons himself, then he sets things up through his suspicious behavior to ensure that the very people he loves will indeed abandon him. The truly sad thing is that Angela really did love him, and it could have been for a lifetime. Even sadder is the fact that if Jared doesn’t get help, he will die a lonely, miserable man.

If you can relate to Jared, see a therapist and get some help for yourself. It’s never too late. If you can relate to Angela, then you need to make some decisions about the relationship(s) you’re in. Obviously you’ve hooked-up with people who are incapable of having healthy relationships unless they choose to get some help and to work hard at changing their self-beliefs from negative to positive.

Life is what you make it. Life can be one big negative episode of self-sabotage, or it can be one big beautiful journey of self-discovery and growth, despite the hardships that we all face. The choice is yours. You have to be the first to reach out and help yourself. Once you do, everything else will begin to fall into place for the betterment of your life.