I'm currently undergoing a huge change in my life right now. I like to think I'm resetting my life.
Well, ok. Currently started two years ago. I was living in the city, with my girlfriend. I was not doing well; I was depressed and I was drinking and smoking a lot. I was bouncing from shitty job to shitty job, with no plans. Lo and behold, the girlfriend dumps me, and I end up back in the suburbs of Chicago. Pretty much relationship, location, and financial reset there [she left me in the red].
Cut to now.
I'm back in school, with a 3.9 GPA and I'm finishing in less than two years.
I've not smoked cigarettes in about a year and a half, and I have no had any alcohol in about four months.
I am in therapy, I am getting healthy, and I am getting involved in comedy again. [I used to perform improv, sketch, and standup before I got all boohoo-y].
This hard reset, though, has happened. I didn't have to move or change my name.
The problem is that resets like this are pricey. I don't hang out with the same people. I don't fit in with old friends because I don't drink or smoke anymore. Actually, Cracked has a good article on how shitty quitting an addiction can be, relationship- and friendship-wise. I'll find it later. Point is, I needed this reset...and even though certain things blow, like not having much of a social life because no one calls the sober guy, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
Life is a one-shot deal, but you can change it up any time you want. You just need to figure out your goals and convictions, and just go for it.
The me from two years ago is VERY different from the me now. And it's because I reset my shit.
My past affects my personality, but I've met people now that would not believe what I was like in the past.
So, yeah. I think there is a reset button to life, in a way. While I am getting back to old things I found enjoyable [comedy, art, writing], I am a different [sober, healthier] person with different wants and needs.
Wow thank you for sharing. I find it kinda interesting to read about other peoples life. (don't misunderstand me, I am serious). And when I read stuff like your story here, even tho I don't know you personally, I kinda feel free to say kind words, maybe share some of my story, relate to what you've been through and also share my thoughts about things in life.
I'm sorry to hear that you've had such a rough time, but we all go through something shitty somehow, sometime
And the only person who can do something about it, is you. No one else. If you want to make a difference and change your way of living into something better, you're the one who's gotta do it. Alone, or with support from friends/family.
Me myself is like a nuclear bomb of ups and downs. I have one best friend who lives about an 8 hour car-ride away from me, my other friend moved away to England to study for some years, another one is a 25-26 year old virgin who hates everyone and everything and can't do nothing but to complain about how miserable his life is since he is never to have a girlfriend and get laid. The other one is a 36-37 year old woman, who's also my cousins wife (my cousin is also my friend). So I don't have many friends to turn to, if you catch my drift. My sister (at the age of 40) is my biggest rock here in life I think, so she helps, and have helped me a lot!
To share something of mine: I've done my time, that lasted maybe 7 or 8 years, telling myself that I'm a nobody. Low self-esteem, being shy, avoiding a social life, be by myself all the time, no talking to anybody. Teachers at school said I was too quiet x) All basic "teenager-behaviour" probably. But it got worse, and it didn't seem that it would get better. I tried finding things that could make me think about anything else than "how does my body look? what do people think when they see me out on the street? can I wear this today? or that? oh, that woman's so much more fit and skinny than me. I bet they throw up at home after seeing me.." Catch my drift? My mother and sister sent me to the doctors. The doctor sent me to a psychologist. The psychologist was a twat, in the mid-30s I think, who thought she was "at my level", talking slang and all that shit while I was talking about my problems. Went there a few times, and then I just gave up on her. I struggled big time with jealousy, I would say extreme jealousy and my last boyfriend fucked up my head. Constantly telling me how mentally damaged I was, "crazy bitch", was embarrassed to hold my hand in public, embarrassed over my laughter. "Do you have to laugh that way? dumb bitch". So finally, after sticking with him for 2,5 years (ask anybody how... they'll just shake their head..) I was so mentally exhausted that I ended the whole thing. It was for his sake I worked out until I puked. It was for him I didn't eat right. It was for him I'd spend 1,5 hours every single morning to figure out "what will I feel comfortable and feel good-looking in today?" Fuck man, I was down in 52kg, almost 51kg at the minimum, and I was on the highway right down. I lost about 2 or 3 very good friends, during the relationship with my ex, because I shut the world out, just to be with him. But only a few days after the break-up, my whole life turned. Automaticly. Because I didn't have all these burdens like body-fixation/hysteria, psyching myself up to the maximum mentally about losing weight etc.etc. And now I've learned so much from it (not the relationship itself, but from every experience and stages in my life). Learned that I really do need friends. Learned that I don't need to look like a supermodel to get people to like me for who I am. I started seeing and realizing things like all the extreme state of poverty around the world, the ones who don't even have fresh water, no food, no money, don't have a home, a bed to sleep in or children who grow up with no parents... I saw that, dude, I fucking have it all, and still I'm living day by day, whining and bothering other people I care about with my twisted vision on the "perfect female body"?! I don't do it for myself, but for everybody else. Skinny, attractive women get a lot of attention and a lot of compliments. Media is the proof.
So I finally have recovered. Even though I don't feel that I've pushed a reset button. I have confidence in myself, I do great at work, I do great with spending right time with my family, but I'm still lousy at keeping in touch with my friends. But the ones who really know me, have accepted that, and they're contacting me anyway, and that means so much! blablabla. I've written too much...
Anywhore, I would not call it a reset button. That's because if I decided to push the reset-life button, I wouldn't want to remember anything that had happened to me. Good or bad. If you push the reset button on a game-controller or a cellphone, it erases all memory and is starting fresh. And I don't think I would want that for myself. I've been given a gift - life - and life is meant to be lived. As Night Reaper says: you only get one life. And my sister said something that I kinda live by: "There's only ONE thing I HAVE to do in life. And that is to die. Everything else, I can choose." I can chose not go to work, but that'll have consequences. I could choose not to eat, but that'll have consequences.
Experiences through all the way, good and bad, learning from mistakes, not learning from mistakes. Now maybe I take this reset button TOO serious, but personally, I want to keep all my memories. The bad ones, because then I know I have failed too at things, and taken bad decisions, but then I've learned from them, and I want to remember them because it's a part of me, a part of the life I've lived. I don't want to go thinking about it 24/7, and bury myself in regret. No no. And of course the good ones
Thinking about certain good memories and experiences, can help making everything a liiitle better
