Do I cater to the tempestuous,
The saccharine need to disembowel?
Must I live in the gutter
In order to know
The profundity of heaven?
Too close and I fear I’d overlook
The divinity in the mundane
Repression has rendered me oblivious
Despite essay I am the same as I ever was
Still jealous, still competitive, still irritable
A blood red hexagram somersaulting
Between preservation and curse
Renovation seems to me now
A form of murder if I change anymore
I will be irreparably diminished
Blinded by my desire to disguise
That which is inherent in man
I will transgress in the dark
Assigning to each defect a proxy
*
When I was a child I was very competitive (not in the positive way) and very jealous. Over the years I have read countless self-improvement books and tested out countless methods to alleviate these unsatisfactory traits. I thought I’d made substantial headway as some of the problem behaviors had subsided but I recently learned that I still possess these traits in abundance. Only now they are manifesting in new less obvious ways. Which led me to believe my more recent relationship issues were related to other unidentified issues when they were in fact related to my jealousy/competitiveness. I wish I’d realized sooner the source but years of repression aka change and I am completely out of synch with myself. The last few days I have been very much in my head hence not being so available. The truth is I haven’t changed much over the years obviously I don’t react to situations quite the same way I did in childhood I have matured in some ways but I still harbor exactly the same feelings, many of the same thoughts, and more or less the same personality aside from a few natural preference changes (I like mushrooms now haha). I think self-improvement has more to do with self-hate than growth. I am not saying that at 33 it is okay to throw a tantrum whenever I don’t get my way but it is okay to feel whatever I am experiencing. It is okay to express myself as well. Many people who embark on self-improvement exercises (self-included) hope to get rid of unwanted traits and feelings but that is impossible. You are who you are. You can alter your responses but only if you are dead honest with yourself about who you are in the first place.
mindlovemisery 