Starting The Machine

“In leaving the desolation and negativity behind, you find something beautiful.”

- Tom DeLonge

Besides love, leaving desolation is the primary topic of this blog. This entry is a general overview (as many of my early entries will be) and will be revisited later on. It’s an extremely important and personal topic for me. The scenarios range from the depressed high school pariah, to the over stressed college student who can’t keep their life together on top of all their classes, and, after too many broken hearts have had enough. While desolation can be found in all of us, it’s extremely sensitive to younger people who don’t have as much experience dealing with problems, stress, depression, etc., and resort to drastic measures.

What’s the point of trying to leave desolation when things just get worse? No matter how hard you try, things just fall apart… so what’s the point? What’s the point of getting better when the world sucks? When the world is place full of pain and suffering? Desolation will always remain with such overwhelmingly cynical thoughts. Not many people have succeeded in life by thinking they will probably fail, so it’s not worth trying.

The fact of the matter is, the world around you is the world you project for yourself. Instead of a world that sucks and is falling apart, the world you see could be one that needs to be fixed and can be fixed. There is no such thing as impossible. Hell, the 2004 Red Sox came back after being down 3-0 in the ALCS against the NEW YORK YANKEES to win the pennant and go on to win the World Series after not winning one for 86 years (I apologize to any Yankees fans for the reference, and I apologize for that run-on sentence).

Hope. Leaving desolation is impossible without hope. Without hope a person cannot properly function. Hope is an easy thing to obtain if you try hard enough. Just because something failed doesn’t mean everything will fail. Perhaps you haven’t found the right combination to make things work.

Personally, my attitude was the number one thing wrong with me. I hated a lot of things. It didn’t help I kept negative people around me who kept bringing me down. I kept myself in a miserable cycle until I realized things would keep being this way unless I changed it. I had very little to no hope. As I’ve said before, don’t worry about things you can’t change. Just worry about the things you can change, and address things from there. If you take things one at a time, you’ll start to worry less about the things that trouble you, and things get easier.

Leaving desolation has been the hardest thing for me so far in my life. Digging yourself out of a deep hole filled with obstacles is no easy task. It might be as simple as writing all your problems and worries out on paper, laundry list style. From there, you can break down each of your problems: why is it a problem? What makes this problem worse? Why is this problem pertinent? Etc. Building off a breakdown of your problems, you can look at how you can fix them. Drastic changes need to be made in baby steps for most people, and there is nothing shameful in making these changes in a slow manner.

However, it is important these slow changes are done with persistence. Just because you might be making slow progress toward a series of goals doesn’t mean you can take a break. Diets rarely work if you take a small break to have a candy bar or two. Persevering through your small steps toward your goal is incredibly important. Break down your goals into smaller, more manageable pieces and proceed in a comfortable manner that will allow accomplishing your outlined goals.

When times get rough I keep reminding myself, “In leaving the desolation and negativity behind, you find something beautiful.” Focus on how you want to change your life and remind yourself that once you get there, your life will be a lot easier. Once you have your life on a track that’s suitable to you, it’ll be easier to deal with stresses that come along your way in daily life.

Leaving a state of desolation is the number one priority for individuals in any situation such as the ones previously discussed. Life is too short to be living a life you don’t appreciate. It is too difficult to life a life of desolation, especially when life can be hard as it is already. But by rising above and leaving desolation, you build a stronger you, which will be more fit and able to deal with the stresses of everyday life.