Into The Nothing

Are you disappearing into nothing?
What happens when we decide to give up?

The music in the movie of our lives does not swell.  
No one comes sweeping out of the darkness to save us.  

The kind of giving up that happens everyday, quietly, desperately, defeatedly. Is
insidious and toxic.

We may silently or loudly play things in our heads that sound like

You’re not smart enough.
You have a learning disability.
You’re poor.
You’re different
You’re not different enough.
You’re too different.
You’re too skinny, too fat. 

Give up.

Get cozy and hide.
Hide in plain sight. Doing something with your life that is fine, good enough. Do
something practical and boring. 

Do something, or worse, just do anything. Pay the bills. That's it.

Survive.

Survive, long enough to be swept away by time and obligation, and forget all the
dreams you had.

What happens when you give up is that it doesn’t happen in a moment, it happens over many thousands of decisions. Just like it happens when you decide to succeed and try.

Same energy, different outcome.

I’m not talking about death.

I’m talking about the toxicity of mediocrity.

Realizing you waited realizing you hesitated. Over. And. Over.

The alternative to this quiet desperation?  There are many. One general rule though is to start things, commit to them for either a length of time or another metric of doneness and to assess your progress, then move on and not be caught in sunk costs. 

Move into something, away from the nothingness of giving up slowly over time. 

Move towards possible.  Move towards people who believe in themselves and therefore probably believe in you.  Move towards small, incremental possibilities, opportunities.  Build a step stool of possibility.  Make daily habits, and know you will miss some days, make small promises and keep them (because later you will be able to keep big promises to yourself and others).

Move towards somethingness and away from nothingness.