checked out.

No, not that kind of checked out.  It's been a while since that has happened.  I mean checked out of life.  And then checking back in.  Realizing all of a sudden that you haven't really been aware of what is going on with yourself, with the world around you, and most distressingly, the people you care about the most.  And you realize that some of the people you care about really don't care about you that much, and conversely, some people have given you way more than you have given them.

So how to right the balance?  I really wish I knew.  People are flawed, I am flawed.  I wonder how many treadmills I have been running on, trying to push through and ultimately going nowhere.  I know I'm not alone.  Attachments, habits, addictions - we all have them.  Sometimes it really bothers me, and sometimes I couldn't care less.  I think that might be what is hard about changing some things - there's no consistency in the "bad" of a lot of things that are not good for us.

Not to geek out on everyone, but genes are like this as well - some of them are only mildly "bad" for you...or they are only bad in certain combinations with certain environmental factors or certain other genes.  It's the combination that causes the trouble, and the trouble itself ranges from not-so-bad to whole system failure.

Ok so that analogy might be taking it a little far, but my point is that some bad situations just aren't bad enough for you to be motivated to change, or are only bad in certain circumstances or when certain things are happening in your life, or some of them weren't bad, get bad, get sort of better, etc.  Or maybe we just get complacent and have bad habits because we are lazy.  Or maybe we were doing the right thing all along and it will turn out alright in the end.  So how do you know what to do? How do you know what to care about?  What to strive for? What to excise and what to add?

There's all sorts of hippy-dippy shit out there that people will tell you about "listening to your heart" or "feeling what you are going to feel," but what if your heart is wrong, and your feelings are wrong?  How do we know? Is it even possible for feelings to be "wrong"?  Hell I don't know.  I've definitely been told that the way I feel is bad or stupid or wrong.   I think we all have.  It never feels good, and then you wonder if there's something wrong with you, when chances are it's the other person who has troubles.  (Why are they spending time telling you that your feelings are wrong in the first place? Don't they have better things to do?)   Sure makes you feel like shit though.

OK, if you've made it this far, I applaud you.