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.

    Money, the root of all evil, the fuel that makes the world turn! None of us have enough and yet some of us have too much.  Big-E use to say, “Mo Money, Mo problems.” I would much rather have Big-E’s problems than my own…besides the being shot and killed thing. They say that money doesn’t buy you happiness but if that is the case, then why do people with money appear happier than those of us with little to no money.

    I often find myself looking for money in hopes of buying a happier lifestyle and every time I do, I end up unhappier than I ever was. There is a trap we don’t see when we chase money, a trap we cannot escape from and that trap is called the Rat Race. The more money we want, the harder we work, and the harder we work the more money we end up paying back to the hand that feeds us.  It took me years to figure out this trap and sadly I still fall victim to it more often than I should. We have grown up in this living marketplace culture where everything has a price and everyone believes they are guaranteed a piece of the pie. Allow me to be the bearer of bad news and tell you, not everyone gets a piece. No one is guaranteed greatness, no one is promised riches, and none of us handed gold. We all sow what we reap, but not all of us will reap what we sow.

    There is a solution though, something that I constantly have to be reminded myself. Money is fleeting. Possessions deteriorate, and valuables lost, but happiness, peace, and greatness, they all come from within, and they are what will truly make you rich in this world. With those three things you can truly achieve anything you want, you can overcome everything you face, and be the person you were meant to be. It is time that we stop trying to chase money, and instead chase our dreams. It is time we stop living to be someone else, but live to be ourselves! 

Being a Better You!

    Sitting here tonight, doing a great deal of self-evaluating while drinking what I like to call a Tennessee Tango but most would refer to as a Whiskey Sour. There are some nights where you just cannot escape everything that is bubbling inside of you, and I don’t mean guts. Often when I start to reflect on myself I think back on things I have done that have got me here. Some nights they are the good things, others they are the bad. Tonight in particular I was thinking about the things I do when I am single, and how they affect me. It is funny how sometimes you stumble across the best things to help you through the mood you are in, tonight was one of those nights.

    I love to read a blog by James Michael Sama known as “The New Chivalry Movement” because it inspires me to be a better man. Tonight I strolled across a post of his that really hit home with me, like many of his writings do. The entry in mention is titled, “10 Dating Norms You Need To Stop Accepting.” Tonight, I would like to reflect on some of these and my past actions and where I would like to be in the near future.

Having to keep working for their approval:

Sama defines this one simply as, “A man or woman should be with you because they value and appreciate who you are, not what you do or how well you sell yourself to them.”

    I can honestly say that I believe that majority of the people in my life do appreciate me for who I am. I think they appreciate the fact that I am a cut up, very off-the-cuff, outgoing person who also knows when to straighten up and act right. I also believe that they appreciate that I always try to be there for the big things and most of the small things, but I’m not focusing on this one because of how people see me, no, I honestly feel I have victimized people with this idea. I honestly feel I have put out a great deal of negative vibes into the world in the past by expecting more from people than I should and not accepting them when they fail. It is something that I can recognize now and can honestly hope that I learn from and can focus on not doing so in the future.

Continuously repeating the same mistakes:

“Someone who keeps promising to change or do things differently, but repeatedly doesn’t, is showing you a clear pattern…”

    I am very guilty of this one as well, which I assume we all are. I have fallen for this one myself and sadly have used this tactic in the past to get my way. It is a sad tactic for anyone to use but personally I look back at the times I did and shake my head at that younger me. A real man doesn’t promise to change; he shows you change and lives up to that decision every day. I aim to never use this “promise of change” ever again and instead to be honest and show change.

Cheating:

“Some people think that second chances are acceptable. I, on the other hand, think that if someone discarded your feelings enough to cheat on you once, they’ll do it again.”

    I agree, people are creatures of habit and when they succumb to their primal urges it shows a weak will. What is worse is that cheating has become so second nature to such a number of people these days that it doesn’t have an impact like it used to.  Cheating is an interesting term, everyone defines what it is in their own ways but if at any point you feel that you have been cheated then it is time to go your separate ways, odds are the cheater is going to promise to change and then repeat the cycle.

Invasion of privacy:

“In a healthy relationship, there is no need to hide anything. Texts, emails, Facebook messages – whatever. But that doesn’t mean your partner has the right to snoop through them…”

    Again, I am guilty as charged and feel that this is one the new world will have an issue with. With everyone posting everything that they can it creates a sense of distress when someone hides something from you. If you don’t believe me get a group of friends together and have one of them show everyone in the group a photo or text except for 1 person, Majority of people will ask what it is or why they didn’t get to see. Think about how you feel when you walk up to someone showing another person something online, your interest is peaked. What we have forgotten is that everyone is due their privacy even in a relationship. I do agree though, in a truly solid relationship you should be able to tell your other-half anything.

   At this point I want to digress, there are plenty more that Sama writes about and I agree with them all but I feel like these are the major ones that I personally need to work on. Granted I have experienced one side or the other, and sometimes both of every single one of his suggested ideas and could sit here and write about these experiences in depth but I honestly wrote this as a form of self-reflection and pointing fingers at others is not worth the effort. We have all made mistakes, we all have our flaws, and we all will experience these at times, but the real goal to anything and everything we do should always be to constantly better ourselves.

If you would like to read more of James Michael Sama’s work then please use the link below, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

http://jamesmsama.com/