Life Isn't Fair. Now What?

I told someone this week that my perspective has shifted quite a bit since I got sober and began my healing journey. He asked me what my perspective on life used to be. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me this before and so it sparked this reflection within me. What did my perspective on life use to be like?

To be quite honest, I'm not even sure I had any concrete perspective on life. That's kind of like a cop out answer and maybe I can just end the blog post here... but I won't.

I'm not sure what is about to come out on this page, but let's find out together.

My main belief about life was that things were happening to me. I lacked agency in my life. I believed I was a victim of everything going on. I believed that I was dealt a shit card and that no matter what I did, nothing good would ever happen to me.

I also lived in such a dark hole with what seemed like no light at the end of the tunnel. I didn't believe that taking action would do anything. Not only did I not think that taking action would do anything, but I didn't even know what it meant to take action.

Eventually, it became pretty clear with the support of the people around me that the next action step that I had to take was to go to rehab. I remember vividly asking my therapist what the point was in going to rehab if I was never going to be happy. Again, there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel and so this action that became seemingly obvious to take didn't seem like it was even worth it.

Looking back, rehab was indeed the first action step that I took toward recovery and living the life that I live now, but it also taught me how to continue to take action. It taught me how to build a life of healthy habits. It taught me how to be vulnerable. Most importantly, it taught me how important community truly is.

One of the most groundbreaking sessions that I had while I was in treatment was when someone said to me that it was not my fault what happened to me, but it was my responsibility to make changes moving forward. I remember my first reaction was that it's not fair. And I was damn right. It's not fair. But life isn't fair and what I learned was that nobody was going to change my circumstances for me. Just because something isn't fair, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be responsible for what we do next.

I learned that day that if I continued to live in a victim mentality, nothing would change.

For so long, I showed up to therapy weekly and in between my sessions, I would do nothing differently. I was hoping that some sort of miracle would happen where some drastic change was going to happen for me without me actually changing anything myself. I remember asking everyone around me why my life wasn't getting better. I was showing up to therapy, yet nothing was changing. I know now that it was my lack of action.

Now, one of my favourite sayings is that if nothing changes, then nothing changes. I even have it tattooed on me.

One of the chapters in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is called "Into Action." I once heard in a meeting that there's a reason it's not called "Into Thinking" or "Into Hoping." We must take action in order to change our circumstances.

Today, that's exactly what my life looks like. Taking action. It looks like putting myself in uncomfortable situations to allow myself to grow. It looks like reaching out to people to talk to them. It looks like making plans with my friends instead of waiting for them to ask me. It looks like going to the gym and treating my body right. It looks like going to meetings. It looks like helping others.

I no longer live in a victim mentality. I am now able to accept the role that I may have played in the different things that have happened in my life and have also learned to accept the things that happened that were out of my control.

Taking responsibility was a hard step. I had built up a lot of resentments through my active addiction. Part of cleaning up my side of the street meant making amends and taking responsibility for how I may have harmed others. Some of the amends I made were to close friends that I didn't talk to for years. I had to put my tail between my legs, own up to what I did and let go of the resentments I held toward them for the things I felt they may have done.

One of my favourite things that anyone said to me was that nobody is going to show up to my pity party. I can sit in it all I want, but no one is gonna show up and have a good time with me. I was delaying my healing by sitting there and sulking about something that was in the past, something that was out of my control.

That's not to say that it's not okay to be sad. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to talk to others about the situations that we're in in our lives. I got into trouble when I held so tightly onto this sadness, onto the anger and didn't allow myself to let go. It is also up to us to take action and do things differently because nobody else can do it for us.

My perspective used to be that life was happening to me. Now, my perspective is a mix of accepting the things I can't control and taking action on the things that I can.