On July 11th, life smacked the fuck out of me.
I woke up that morning, and everything was in order.
In the afternoon it turned into violent emotional chaos.
A kind of pain that I have never felt before,
I’ve been lucky so far, and incredibly grateful for that.
On that day I experienced shock, desperation and
unbearable grief at a level I had never felt before.
It took me 12 days to recover and gather enough strength to pursue
my 90-day challenge. This post isn’t about the details of what happened
on that day, I’ve cried enough in the last two weeks.
I’m exhausted…
Today I want to zoom out, all the way into space.
Try to make sense of the bigger picture, and look for the
positive that might come out of this personal tragedy.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been blessed for most of my life.
And by that, I mean that my family has never suffered any real tragedies.
Like most families, we’ve experienced losses, but normal ones.
Older family members passing away of old age, family pets dying…
But no significant illnesses or accidental deaths, like many
other unfortunate people are forced to go through.
I feel lucky. The only “downside” is that when you reach your
forties having lived an emotionally painless life, when something
does happen, it has the power to demolish you. Being resilient and
bouncing back after unfortunate events is like anything else in life,
you get better and stronger with practice.
And without practice, life is great!
But you’re emotionally frail.
Pain makes you stronger.
It sucks but that’s the way it is.
Just like working out your muscles temporarily damages them,
causes them to be sore, and then rebuild even stronger than before,
our mental strength works in the same way.
The toughest and most successful people on earth are often the ones who have
endured unimaginable pain and setbacks in life. They refused to let those
things stop them and kept going through whatever hellish circumstances
was thrown in their path. They focused all their energy on a specific
goal and kept doing what they enjoyed the most.
When fucked up shit happens and you get knocked down, there are two choices;
Give up and let that thing destroy you, or… Get back up, try to find the positive
in whatever happened and keep going forward.
If you get back up and keep fighting, you will notice that certain things won’t
phase you anymore. Specific fears you had, insecurities or what you considered obstacles, no longer have the power to stop you. Even if that’s the only positive that comes out of a tragedy or loss, this newfound power is enough to transform all aspects of your life.
After crying like a baby for a few days straight, when the grief settled,
I felt like a stronger version of myself. As if all the insignificant things that
bothered me before the tragedy lost their power over my emotional well-being.
All of us have heard of the hero who rises from the ashes and, against all odds,
went on to achieve the pinnacle of success in whatever field they practiced.
Actors, athletes, artists, businesspeople, etc.… Every profession, field, sport
or other types of activity have their own masters. And almost every
single one of those masters, at some point in their lives,
endured more pain than the rest of us.
Take Eminem for example.
He’s now the best emcee in the rap game.
Some people will obviously disagree, but if we only focus on the ability to create elaborate rhyme schemes in a way that’s never been done before, there’s
no denying that he’s untouchable.
He grew up poor, in a dysfunctional family.
Surrounded by drug abuse and violence.
He got his head bashed in a couple of times when he was in school,
was broke as shit, and his main passion in life- rapping-
was something that white boys weren’t known or respected for.
And for good reasons. His predecessors sucked.
(Beastie boys were cool but different. Not the same type of lyrical rhymes)
So there was no role model for him to follow.
He had to create his own path.
I remember being a teenager, and how emotionally vulnerable I felt
during that strange period in life. A time where you’re not a kid anymore.
So being cute is a thing of the past. Most teenagers are like weeds, they grow
fast and rarely look proportionate. On top of the odd physical changes going on,
there are floods of hormonal and mental changes going on as well.
People don’t treat you like an adorable child anymore, but they
don’t respect you as an adult either.
You’re stuck in limbo.
Eminem hung around with black kids, in a very rough neighbourhood,
and dreamed of becoming good at their craft. The only problem is that he
looked and expressed himself differently than they did.
In the underground rap world, everything revolves around respect.
And gaining respect in an art form that was created by minorities, to express
themselves against the oppression caused by white men, is not easy for a white boy.
When battled other rappers, he didn’t have one or two people rooting against him, he had hundreds of hardcore motherfuckers laughing at him and telling him to give up and go home.
Can you imagine how painful that must have been? I can.
I clearly remember how much it hurt to be laughed at by one cool kid,
or how a pimple could ruin my day and self-esteem. If I multiply the feeling
of shame by 1000, this is how he must have felt.
What a destructive force it must have been to deal with.
99.9999% of white kids, under those circumstances, would have given up.
But he persisted and held on to his dream.
When he got home, the lack of support continued.
No positive role models, no steady source of encouragement,
empowerment or love. This was an environment that would crush most kids.
But he didn’t give up, even though it would’ve been the most comfortable option.
Life has a unique way of rewarding persistent efforts against negative resistance,
It’s called success, recognition, mastery or anything else the resilient person is seeking.
Look at him now. He’s considered a rap god throughout the world.
Without all that adversity, he never would have mastered his
craft at the level that he did.
All those years of frustration and fighting to prove himself, all the pain and
deceptions he endured were essential to fueling his desire to reach his goal of
becoming the best who ever did it.
Eminem is not often portrayed as a positive influence.
Many of his tracks are considered violent,
rude or demeaning to some.
But anyone who listens carefully to his whole catalogue will
quickly realize that when he’s not fucking around or purposely saying things
to piss people off, he’s incredibly positive. Songs like “Not afraid,” “Lose yourself” or “Beautiful pain” are legendary in their capacity to uplift the human spirit. I’ve been listening to rap since I was 13 years old, and dozens of other musical genres.
I’ve found many of his tracks to be the most powerful for my spirit
when going through rough times.
There are hundreds of other examples of people who have gone through pure shit to eventually reach the stars and rule a specific area of life, but I chose him as an example because, in the media, he has always been portrayed as a negative force.
One doesn’t have to dig very deep to find out that despite a few violent
or negative lyrics, the man behind them is a positive soul.
Midlifemorphosis 