Why you should give up hope.

Life is pretty damn good lately.  There are times I even catch myself thinking, "Wow, I actually feel kind of okay. Is this happiness?"

Don't get me wrong: there are a lot of things I don't have - that I thought I would - at 32 years old. 

I don't have a relationship. 
BUT I also don't have a sh*tty relationship.

No one lies to me, makes my life miserable, or expects me to do everything for them.  No emotional roller coaster, no divorce, no broken home.  Could be worse.  Has been worse!

I don't have a family.  
BUT....I DON'T HAVE KIDS!!!

Let's face it, that's a shit-ton less work for me! I get eight - or more - hours of sleep a night. This fact alone makes me a much nicer person.  I'm sure there are awesome guys out there who would actually do 50% of the housework, but none of them have proposed to me yet. 

I don't have a prestigious career. 
BUT I don't have a job I hate.

I don't work 70 hours a week at a job that sucks the life out of me, with no time left for the things I want to do.  I have a great schedule doing work I enjoy, with people I enjoy, and relatively low stress.  Having experienced the opposite, there's a lot to be said for this. 

IF

Forgiveness = giving up the hope that the past could be different than it was,

THEN

Happiness = giving up the hope that the present could be different than it is. 

The moment I descend into self-flagellation over what I could be doing, or should be doing, or what everyone else is doing, I become immediately dissatisfied with my life.  This is another reason why Facebook is the devil.  We often feel perfectly fine with ourselves until we start comparing our lives to all these people that *seem* to have something we don't. 

If I decided to wait until I had a boyfriend or a better job or financial prosperity to be happy, god only knows how long that might take.  I have enough. And that's all I need.  If I can't accept myself and my life and exactly the way things stand today, there's no hope for tomorrow. 

For every little thing you don't have - that you think you want - is something you *DON'T* have that you should be damn thankful for!! 

So seriously, give up the hope that the next person who comes into your life is going to make you happy, give up the hope that a different job would make it all better, give up the hope that your family is going to get along one day...and see if you can figure out a way to accept exactly what's in front of you.  If that fails, here's a quote to live by:

"I may not be where I wanna be yet,

but I sure as hell ain't where I was!"



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Top 10 Reasons Why Facebook Is The Devil

Does anybody like me? 

Does anyone give a flying rip what goes on in my life?

How (un)popular am I?

These are all questions we entrust Facebook to answer for us: from how cool we are (not), to how many people hang on our everyday happenings.  At this point in history, our very worth as human beings comes down to that number in parenthesis after the word “Friends.”

Despite posting recently about us being “the generation with 742 Facebook friends,” my own current number is a lot closer to 7+4+2.  Somewhere there is a rock in Indonesia with more FB fans than me.    

For one, I have deleted my entire Friends-list more times than anyone would probably believe….behavior that was a byproduct of my “no one gives a sh*t about me” suicidal mentality. 

Secondly, I end up removing nearly half of the people I add because I either:

A) accept their request out of curiosity, then spy on them for a day before deciding I don’t really know or like the person 

OR 

B) decide this person doesn’t need to know my thoughts or gawk at my profile out of mentally ill paranoia 

OR

C) they’ve pissed me off and can now proceed to go f*ck themselves.  

Third, I don’t participate in whatever competition the world has going to see how many acquaintences-of-acquaintances-of-acquaintences-of-friends (i.e. stuh-RANGERS!!!) I can collect in order to impress people whose opinions I could care less about. 

Lastly, If 1-3 sounded like pathetic excuses for why I am a loser with no friends, I’ll just come right out and demystify the issue: I AM a loser and I DON’T really have any friends.  I’ve chucked them all.

As you can tell, I simultaneously imbue Facebook with both waaaaay too much meaning and no importance whatsoever….what’s that quote to the effect of:

“You wouldn’t care so much what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.”  

But then, that’s also precisely the point!  No one thinks about me!  I have tons of shit I want to say, and no one to say it to.  Every time something hilarious or annoying or awesome or disturbing happens, I think of who I could tell and come up with – you guessed it – nobody.  I could always post it on Facebook and then feel more pathetic when nobody bothers to comment on it, right?!?!

Top 10 Reasons Why Facebook Is The Devil:

1. It does nothing but incite envy.  There will always be people with more good times in their photo albums, more smiling beer-holding friends in their pictures, and more exciting sh*t going on in their lives.
2. It does nothing but incite fake-ness.  You invest hours concocting the perfect online persona, with carefully selected pictures and quotes and descriptions to make yourself appear happier, cooler, hotter, smarter, funnier, and more interesting than you really are.
3. It does nothing but incite impulsivity.  In a split second you tell 375 people something you reeeeallly should’ve kept to yourself. 
4. It does nothing but incite over-disclosure.  You broadcast your least intelligent thoughts to the world.  For some of us, this reveals that we are illiterate backwoods dingdongs who can’t spell or string together a coherent sentence (and by this I mean family).  And I quote: “It is better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re stupid, than to open it and remove all doubt."
5. It does nothing but incite jealousy.  You now have the ultimate spy tool to track every fool your friends and (ex)boyfriends are in contact with and how much more attention they pay to them than you. 
6. It does nothing but incite rage.  Seriously, that bitch does something every other week with so-and-so but never has time for ME?  Screw her.  “Unfriend.”     
7. It does nothing but incite picture-taking. I swear to GOD I cannot figure out how a camera is present in every conceivable life situation and WHO the hell is spending every waking moment taking pictures of the dumbest stuff imaginable. 
8. It does nothing but incite loneliness.  Despite hundreds of connections, you couldn’t possibly feel more alone.  
9. It does nothing but incite hatred.  I fucking hate Facebook, don’t YOU?
10. It does nothing but incite desperation.  So follow downfromtheledge on Facebook.  Please? 

“Anytime you need a friend....

I will be here...”  So sings Mariah Carey. 

But some words are only true in a song.

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”

Maybe those are the kind of friendships other people have.

Lucky bastards.

In the real world, you don’t always get back what you give. 

“Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.” -Albert Camus

In my life’s darkest times, no one has “shown up” for me. 

If I wanted to hit the bars, there are a bazillion people, friends-cousins-acquaintances, I could call up.

If I wanted ditzy bimbo friends to gossip with about who’s sleeping with who, I could go be another dime-a-dozen trollop down at the bar all hoed up with my group of girls. 

But when your life’s falling apart:

• Do you call the friend who’s not there for the little things to be there for the big things?
• Who can’t be burdened for an hour lunch...for a life crisis?
• Should you unload on someone too busy to post back on Facebook, much less reply to an e-mail?

My so-called “best friends” have known about all the major losses in these past several years of my life ... and not bothered to call or see how I’m doing, or even if I’m alive or dead. 

“Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say.”

For a time you continue to reach out anyway, to act normal, hiding your pain so as not to be a burden.  You try to be the kind of friend you wish you had, until that nagging question in the back of your mind one day leaps to the forefront: where WERE you?

Where were you when life was kicking my ass?

When I couldn't get out of bed?

When I had no one?

I didn’t even show you the darkness, I pretended for you...wasn’t I a good enough actor?

I know, I know: it’s always more fun to knock back a few margaritas with the happy, laughing bunch.

Failure might be contagious.  Despair is catching. 

And I...am a leper? 

So before you shut me out completely, best friend, I will throw you out along with the rest of the world. 

I never wanted you to feel sorry for me.  I didn’t need your pity.  I did need to look in your eyes and see that I was the same person you called “friend” before this bulldozer ran over my life. 

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." ~Henri Nouwen 

"But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away." ~Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson