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“I totally remember what it felt like to be so full …full of promise, full of dreams, full of shit.
Mostly just full of yourself.
So full you’re bursting.
And then you get out into the world, and people empty you out, little by little, like air from a balloon. You try like hell to fill yourself up with fresh air, from you and from other people.
But back then … it was so damn effortless to feel full, you know?
All you had to do was breathe. “
Jonathan Tropper
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There is certainly a point in most of our lives when we feel full. I don’t have a specific age to point to. I cannot even point to a specific time in Life <and someone is lying if they try and tell you something specific>.
For some it is 6.
For some it is 16.
For some it is 26.
For some it is 36.
But. Suffice it to say that there is a point in almost everyone’s life where you are full to bursting and you burst out into Life.
The amazing thing is up to that point it most likely didn’t take any work. Yeah. As natural as breathing you were inflated. You are full of everything & anything that suggested ‘possibilities.’
Uhm. And it is just about at the point you are at bursting, you begin deflating.
From that point on it is almost a battle of attrition with regard to how you view your possibilities. Shit. I could argue that from that point on it is a battle of attrition with regard to your esteem, meaning & sense of self.
And here is where I really thought the quote nailed this thought.
People.
It is People who empty you little by little.
Not Life, ‘people.’
That is the truth <the truth many of us just don’t think about>. We far too often say Life is the enemy of possibilities and that it relentlessly attacks us or relentlessly places obstacles to what we want & desire.
But it isn’t Life.
It is always people who deflate.
To be fair, people can inflate, but more often than not people deflate. And deflating doesn’t have to be mean spirited or even well thought out attacks on what is ready to burst out from you.
It can be the pinprick of a ‘no.’
It can be the pinprick of a question.
It can be the pinprick of ‘are you sure?’
Well. The pinpricks that deflate are so numerous that … well … deflating is the pinprick version of a ‘death of a thousand cuts.’
Here is where it gets really tough. What got you inflated does you absolutely no good in defending deflation. Because you are doomed if all you do is try to re-inflate. A pinprick remains and you end up working harder and harder to try to not only re-inflate, but simply to maintain your buoyancy.
It is a fool’s errand to try and re-inflate.
Okay.
Maybe it is foolish only until you have mended some of the pinpricks and patched them up <mentally & psychologically>.
Now. I could suggest you try and eliminate the people with the fucking pins, but that is also a fool’s errand. It is foolish because there are more of them then there are of you. There is a relentless onslaught of prick people <sorry … I just wanted to type that>.
What I suggest is, first, recognize how you are slowly being deflated.
Acceptance is the first step.
What I suggest second is to build an internal mending kit. Accept the fact you are gonna get pricked, accept the fact that you cannot build an exterior which will turn away the pins <because that means you will be a hardened asshole oblivious to constructive criticism or real input> and accept the fact you simply have to mend yourself. Continuously.
You may be reading this and think I am full of shit.
To those people I suggest you sit back and think a moment. Think about what it felt like to be so full … full of promise, full of dreams, full of shit.
Don’t think about when that was <because that is irrelevant>.
Just think about how it felt.
I bet it felt fucking awesome.
I also bet you don’t feel that way now or anymore.
And, if I am right, don’t run off trying to re-inflate yourself, just start mending the small pin prick holes today. Cause if you do that … well … you are back on the path to bursting with promise, dreams and shit. Ok. Maybe not all the way to that, but certainly reinflating some possibilities.
Ponder.