The t-shirt said, “Life isn’t easy. Life isn’t perfect. Life is good.” I enthusiastically bought it for my daughter who is studying to be a mental health counselor and wished they also had one in my size.
Life isn’t easy, and we may struggle with the belief that life can be hard, imperfect, and good at the same time. Reality is often painful, and it’s natural to want to escape for a while. Life is full of difficult issues and when those issues get extremely difficult, we may want to escape for a good long while.
A break is sometimes just what we need to recharge our batteries and embrace the “life is good” philosophy. Complications occur when our break turns into a vacation so extended our passport expires – when it turns into an addiction. Our reality deteriorates and our need for an escape escalates.
When we talk about addiction, our minds generally picture alcoholics, illegal drug users, and gamblers. But we can become addicted to many things such as comfort foods, video games, pornography, social media, and even cleaning. We may try to get rid of the object of the addiction – the alcohol, the meth, the casinos – and assume the problems will then go away. But cutting off the supply won’t be effective if the demand remains. If one type of addiction goes away, what will stop us from simply seeking another way to escape a reality we find too complicated and unbearable to face?
If our need to evade our pain has become destructive to ourselves and those around us, making the object of our addiction illegal won’t be the cure. The cure will revolve around two components: making our reality less frightening and more hopeful; and finding healthy, short-term escape outlets.
Making Our Reality Less Frightening and More Hopeful
When life overwhelms us and we’ve lost hope in our ability to manage it, we need to know we’re not alone and we’re not doomed. We need to know we’re loved and have purpose. Help may come from people who care and provide support. It may come from spiritual sources that assure us we are forgiven and valuable.
As a society, we can look at what there is in the environment and culture we’ve created that is causing despair. Happiness researchers tell us that the amount of money we have is not related to our satisfaction with life once we have the resources to meet our basic living expenses. We don’t need fancy cars or huge houses, but we do need enough money for food, clothes, and shelter plus a little extra so we can fix the car when it breaks down and get medical help when we need it. Most importantly, we need to belong to a community that respects and cares about us.
Healthy Short-Term Escape Outlets
Life will never be a worry-free, gleeful path forward. There will be bumps and detours. We need to find positive ways to deal with hurt and shame. If we want to say “no” to an unhealthy addiction, we need to find healthy choices to say “yes” to.
I’m a big fan of reading myself and love any form of fiction that allows me to jump into the lives of characters I can care about on a pain-free level. Watching a thought-provoking movie or silly comedy takes me out of myself and into another world without worries of a hangover or gaining weight. Exercise, music, gardening, art, prayer, meditation, service to others, or whatever form of flow we enjoy can take us to a happy place and give us a needed respite from whatever concerns may be haunting us.
We need to be wary of trying to escape our own difficult reality by gossiping about our neighbor’s shortcomings and displacing our personal angst onto others. Conspiracy theories and fake news may consume us because they are easier for us to digest than inconvenient truths concerning ourselves. Instead of being curious and open-minded, we become close-minded and addicted to passing judgment on others.
Communities can create healthy environments that reduce the demand for harmful substances and activities. Envision economic development plans that truly value making a community healthier, not just wealthier. Where progress is measured not just in quantity of dollars, but also in quality of life.
Loneliness can be deadly, and caring communities provide opportunities for connection so people can enjoy time together. Parks, gardens, and trails encourage time with nature, and the arts beautify our environment and educate us, inspiring positivity.
Health and medical writer Anne Fletcher stated, “Nobody stays recovered unless the life they have created is more rewarding and satisfying than the one they left behind.”We can create a more rewarding and satisfying reality on both a personal and community level.
On a personal level, we can lift ourselves up by finding moments that deliver us from our gloomy thoughts and feelings in a beneficial way. We become addicts because our lives are filled with pain and we don’t know how to stop spiraling out of control. It’s hard to see the good in life when we feel good for nothing. We can, however, follow Maya Angelou’s advice “Do your best until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
On a community level, we can make reality less frightening by being more compassionate and accepting. By looking beyond a harmful addiction to what has harmed the soul and spirit of the person suffering with the addiction. We all need care at some time and we all can experience the joy of making a difference in the life of someone who needs care. Physician and poet William Carlos Williams advised, “The only way to be truly happy is to make others happy.”
As the t-shirt reminded me, life doesn’t have to be easy or perfect to be good.
Choose Forgiveness 