Lessons Learned From Reality TV

    The last time I wrote something here I mentioned what this blog should be and today I am going to attempt to meet that challenge by sharing a recent story. This story takes place not long ago in a galaxy very, very close; this galaxy to be exact. 

    In the fall of 2017 I found myself sitting at home one night, alone, sad, and exhausted. I wasn’t physically exhausted but instead, mentally. I was worn out from the psychological torment of the swipe game. If you are not sure what the swipe game is then either you’re not single, or you don’t understand technology. The swipe game is the action of swiping left and right on potential people to connect with and potentially date and slash or screw. It’s the new age of dating people. 

    On this fall night I had decided that I was done swiping and trying to connect with people through my phone when there was no initial hormonal connection, you know  the exchange of oxytocin and vasopressin. I decided it was time to do something drastic that would change my life forever, so guess what I did! No, I did not find a hooker...sorry “escort” off of back pages, I decided to apply for a reality television show for the second time in my life. The first time really isn’t important to this story but it was Hell’s Kitchen when I was 22. This time I applied for one of those shows based around love, I won’t state which one because I may still be contractually obligated not to talk about it, I’m not entirely sure, but the general concept of the show would have resulted in me being legally wed to a stranger. 

    Applying for this process was long and required months of evaluations and interviews but as that time went on I slowly came closer and closer to the final casting decision which was more exciting than it was nerve wracking. I know, this idea sounds crazy, and it probably was but as I moved through this process I began to learn more about myself than I ever expected to. 

    The first thing I learned is that balance is incredibly important in all aspects of life. Everything you do should be in balance. Your diet, your vices, your obligations, and your adventures. We currently live in a world where we are constantly shown images and ideas and told to listen, and many of us do listen, before we even think for our self. Think about your Instagram feed and who you follow, it probably has nutrition information, workout guru’s, and adventure capitalists all over it which is great because it is inspiring, but, it’s also an extreme. It shows you all of these specific focuses that become polarizing. Your Facebook feed obviously does the same. When I was going through this process for this show I had to reflect a great deal and I quickly learned that I made excuses for my vices and they were far from balanced. Once I realized this I quickly tried to over correct and drop all of them which was just as horrible. Luckily in the last month or so I found balance. Drink, but know when you need to stop or what nights you shouldn’t. Smoking, it’s horrible for you, but the occasional cigarette is not going to cause you to drop dead. I also found this balance in my responsibilities, discovering that some days you have to put in the hours at work but it’s just as important to put some hours into fun and relaxation. 

    Another big lesson I learned was one that I wish I had learned many years ago. I had heard this one hundreds of times but never really took it to heart until lately. You can’t love someone until you love yourself. It sounds stupid right, I’m sure we have all loved someone before and didn’t really know if we loved our self or not. Well here is the catch, you can be in love with someone and not love yourself, odds are you love that person because they embody characteristics you wish that you had which is fine, it’s called admiration. The saying, “you can’t love someone until you love yourself” really means that you cannot properly love someone and respect them unless you love and respect yourself. If you have no respect for yourself then you have no problem letting others walk all over you which means you probably will not stand up for yourself which is a sign that you lack confidence. How can you be expected to protect, or stand up for, or even understand someone if you are unable to do those things for yourself. Again, in this process I spent great sums of time having to analyze myself and in doing so I began to realize what by best qualities were and in what areas I could use work. This allowed for me to learn to love myself for my quirky and dark sense of humor, my skills of reasoning and sensibility, and my warm heart that I have a tendency to hide from people. It also allowed me to see that I need to work on being a leader for myself so that I don’t stagnate in one place. 

    These are just two examples of things that I learned but most of the lessons fall right in line with these two ideas. I want to urge you, the person reading this now, to sit down and really reflect and analyze yourself. Find a quiet place and write out your answers to the hard questions you want to ask yourself. If you can’t figure out what to ask yourself then do some role-playing and write out the questions you would want to be asked by your dream date and if playing make believe is hard for you then ask a good friend to help you out by being your interviewer, you may be surprised by what you learn about that person in the mirror. 

What This Blog Should Be...

It has been a few years since I have written anything for this blog. When I started it my goal was to write about my life and journey to make up for the lost time of my life from the four years previous. I had hoped it would be a tale of debauchery and drunken idiocy, something equivalent to that of Tucker Max or Hank Moody. It was nothing like that, instead, the pendulum swung the other direction. I spent the past few years growing more than I ever would have expected. 

I had this idea that since I was in a committed relationship from the age of 21 to 25 that I had let a great deal of the those crazy moments escape me and it was time to catch up, so while some of my closest friends were having kids or getting divorced, I wanted to try psychedelic mushrooms or sleep with a multitude of loose women. I was fresh out of a breakup that was not my choice so I obviously was not in my right mind. I started by spending most nights drunk. Actually, it was every night. If I was not out with a friend in Dallas then I was sitting in a dive bar drinking with 50 year old addicts and failures. I would drink enough to get to sleep at night and go into work hung over every morning. I nearly lost my job over it. This probably sounds depressing or pitiful, and it was, but the truth is, I would not trade those days for anything.

It was those days that led me to meeting new people and those new people who gave me reasons to drink in high spirits instead of low. I spent the next few months, no, years re-learning who I was and began to love myself. The stories that I thought I would write in this blog all changed. I was living life but the stories were not about sowing my oats or destroying myself, instead they are about appreciating who I am, growing as a person, and learning to love myself. I have not written any of those stories here because I quickly realized that my story is not the same as someone else’s. I have kept most of those stories to myself because they were the exact opposite of what this blog was supposed to be but now, I look back and realize that those were the stories I should have told, the only problem is that no matter how I tell them, you would not understand them unless you live them yourself. 

What I can say is this, never look at a decision you have made and see it as a mistake. Don’t regret those past relationship or choices. Don’t regret what you did on a whim. It is those decisions that can shape your life, it is those decisions that could take you from drinking yourself to sleep, to sleeping soundly knowing you are appreciated and loved.