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order-progress · 5 years ago

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I used to have a really entitled outlook on life. In my mind though, I was entitled to my thought processes because it was where my mind existed in the place having had come from a once far more turbulent era. Back then I didn't question things that werent outwardly obvious. I didnt question the unremarkable identities of things that exhibited no distinctions amongst one another. Life was a stream of experience, and I just did the best of choices I decided to arrange, or really actually, more like shuffle choices into a messy pile and pat myself in the back cause I could squint at it my mismatched pile of non related events and not feel guilty for putting off routine, structure and goals.

I guess it isnt so surprising to anticipate that like all my other experiences, disicpline would present itself when and if I needed it to be summoned out of wherever creative and yet very hard to imagine location i would imagine it arriving at some future, ambiguous date, just in time to make no work look like fancier no work and with ribbons on it.

Something very common happened to me, something that is happinning right now all around the world, no matter how many days, or years after i first posted this here.

My boyfriend broke up with me.

I wore my entitlement pretty high that day, because somehow, despite there having been no carefully executed plan made on ky end--some masterpiece scheme of genius where one could really see there existed some reasonable and healthy attention to tackle to fucking problem.

Nope. My mother fucking entitled ass decided id actually be shocked. Not even fake shocked. Thats how you know you have lost touch with your surroundings, because big things happen in your wake..while your awake and yet somehow your stuck on who killed the butler in the library with the candle stick.

What makes this one of the most significant event despite its occurance being fairly common globaly, is that his presence had caused me to become more aware of more of the things I would have otherwise taken in stride, none of these events were remarkable on their own, but collectivelly, I had inadvertantly cleaned up my mindspace to find neatly organized clusters of thoughts no longer blending into the subconcious like 70's urban grafitti.

I didnt hold that moment to some disporportionately skewed sugar coating scale just to get ribbons on them after they were organized,I just acknowledged them, like a breath,where as before, they were simply obstacles or pit stops that would perpetuate the chronic attention deficit I had welcomed into my head. I like to think of ADD as the worlds most innefective street sweepers, they sweep alright, but they just make a bigger mess and then you got things in places they have no business being in.

I was in a place of low self worth because of an accumulated collection of short lived and half assed adventures, disastrous endeavers and the nefarious presence of something so obscured, so black and forboding, made me avoid certain places for simply not wanting to deal with the house keeping it wouldve required to mitigate its destructive intentions.

I kept myself busy to not force the acknowledgent that this would become a source of not only my insecuruties, but then in addition to its ever increasing interconnectedness, its complexity. Its chambers that hardened like a mystical kight of armor, whose drawers were full of destructive objects and thoughts that rattled in their confinement as a means of foreshadowing something so sinister, I could not then yet fathom the destrutive ways its icy talons would engulf and twist into my everyday life simply to create chaos, and it didnt register that this was a problem because amidst this battle royale of fragments and bits of poorly put together patterns, Francisco's presense was a light whose emimation lulled me into a complacecy I hadnt anticipated

It wasnt that in this period, that I conciously made a decision to disregard the growing issue, it was the novelty of being in a loving, beautiful and mature relationship with someone that as each day grew, so did my conviction that this person was becoming the brightest fixture in an ever cramped confined hallway of possibilities.

As I stood there aware of this moment, feeling a satisfaction and a gratitude I had never felt before, I realized that I had come so far on autopilot, it was a move that was almost instinctual, I rolled my sleeves up, put on the rocky theme song, got my gym bag ready, went and bought like every stupid unessecary stupid trinket shit people buy to feel like their getting a handle and a good start on some shit, but really it just becomes the infuriating bag of junk that is now the obstacle between you and the door handle to exit your car and actually start your project.

I felt a sense of urgency, I saw how unequipped I had been and while I was and it was this moment that taught me how much I loved him. I reckognized that somehow I was one of those fucking weirdos that jumped through those seedy ass short cut type scenarios in life to give you the same effect of the real thing in less the time, kind of like a GED vs high school diploma, or plan b instead of condoms.

I recognized that there was an innate element of unneccesary risk involved in many of my accomplishments. The risk was usually always a concious decision that I would accept a certain amount of totally unnecessary consequences that typically would define the life of those people who you catch specific glimpses of in mysterious times like dawn or dusk. And be like..yea i could totally see that guy having to figure out what to do with the llama he inherited as a result of some gamble.

This was no longer an acceptable risk. It wasnt that i thought it was dangerous or scare him away, its that I am not the kind of man that wakes up and sees the problems his factory has and finally knows how to fix it and then just be okay with going to bed and put it off.

This is where I get annoyed again. I knew that I wasnt capable of actively doing something against him, because we both agreed on things, and also neither of us was completely high as fucking kite on methamphetamines while operating a forklift to tune a paino yet.

I couldnt ever feel bad about atheletes who ugly cried after being disqualified for juicing to get an unfair advantage in the sports world.

Yet once again my overwhelming confidence, my lovable man mentality of "fuck a map or tools you got grit, spit and teeth". Prevailed.

Im mad because it was this moment right here. In a sea of me being happy to grow and learn and doing the rignt thing. I saw a place i overlooked, its presence was almost like a marker that there were many other areas i needed to work on, and i got sad.

I didnt feel good enough. I felt like a mess. I felt dissapointed at the pride in nothing I had taken so many times. I was finally proud of the changes i was making again, only to be reminded in a very real way of how I never had structure, never had a fail safe implemented effectively to instead of adopting either anxiety or no fucks about an event that could have been in my power to mitigate, i either didnt even notice I missed it, or didnt care.

As I started seeing the mountain of work I had to do, I wondered what it meant about how effectively i could handle other things moving forward, it was an irrational fear that I had that I would dissapoint him because I wanted us to be happy. But i am an artistic person, people who work with details to make a larger picture learn early on how to work details, and I never evaluated just how shoddy my altertanitive crash course was like getting PlAN B instead of putting a condom on.

I can handle pressure effectively. I can be okay with my decisions. What I cant do is open up a factory, see everything that was negelcted when I now know how to fix it, and then go to sleep like nothing bothered me.

I never in my life found myself in a place where i came face to face with old life and it made me feel sad or humilated. I felt like a fraud for just having gotten lucky that everytning worked out, while he worked hard.

I suddenly felt something I never experienced before, fear in love. The moment where you realize your not a piece of shit because you actually dont want to let someone down, the moment when you feel bad because you walked around in life with luck you didnt give a second thought to and passed it off as hard work. And here was this beautiful man, whose life was suffering and hard work, and you realized all of it at once, and there I was, eager fucking beaver captain america man of the house cause now i feel like a god damned engineer since i could assemble an ikea 3 piece wrench-back the fuck up motherfuckers.

I just felt humbled and i felt driven. I also felt the pressures rise up around me and I dont know why I couldnt look away from the sight of the realization of how id been. And its not like i did it all on purpose, but from that moment on, it was as if I had something to prove to myself that at that time I couldnt understand yet because I hadnt reflected yet. And as I was taking the scenic route on ways to "punish yourself is actually how we fucking motivate ourselves around here cus were fucking men" the bigger I created something inside me that wasnt ever there. And then as the places that I had been tendering to and growing in started to not be kept, pressure in my life at home happened. And for the first time in my entire life I was embarrassed at my life.

I remember the moment I felt it, my mom leaving me at work after I lost my car. I walked 2 miles in the cold because i was infuriated that I allowed another event I could have forseen to happen.

I never in my life reflected this intensley on my actions before. Having him in my life made me realize I had been holding myself to a higher standard because I am at my best when I when I am actively building towards something. I opened a place in me I never saw with those eyes and it hurt me. I tried to let him in, and to be honest, the insecurities of him seeing all that mortiified me..not because I would be seen as a slob or this or that, i was just dissapointed that I for a time during when I needed it the most in my early life, I wasnt necessarily taught healthy ways to do things. Mostly because I came to this country at 10, didnt know english, parents worked all the time until i was 16 and then dad got sick with brain cancer and we caught it after he had a seizure cause dad apperently loved moonlighting as my biggest fan when he would go reading my journal at night.

I didnt know how to explain it to francisco. I was feeling. New concept, i was feeling out of sync, i didnt understand why it hit me so hard. I was trying to look away and orient myself on the present.

I could have just dealt with that. But i suddenly felt raw and vulnerable. My boyfriend and I were getting into arguments because I just wanted us to be closer due to this need i didnt know how to vocalize about what I was going through, and he hesitated because he probably thought id leave him if i saw his dirty secrets.

That was the one thing he really never appreciated about my love. I just knew. If everything else was as evident ..like this feelings and where they came from and how to process them healthy while ...it just all got too much. I didnt know how to tell him what I needed. I just needed him.

I started to feel like i wasnt tethered to the focused areas I was so eager to work in. I just kept telling myself communication is key we will get through it.

Then I the drugs did something I didnt expect them to. They turned off this guilt and switch. They gave me the quiet to make them come down to a more manegeable place where I wasnt overwhelmed anymore.

Because I couldnt process this in words at the time, i didnt know how to express that to him. It led to me feeling guilty for not understanding why i enjoyed doing the drugs aside from the stimulant effect. When i tried to explain it to him, it was like trying to coin a cheesy motto for a doomed cereal commercial in french, basically everuthing sounded like something he had no understamding or could relate to.

I started feeling depressed because i could see that although from his perspective we were fighting..

I was even more frustrated becauese we werent fighting. I was pretty much crying, trying to tell him in french something he didnt understand while he was yelling at me in english about me not respecting him by not speaking english.

This was the worst fucking part. Because part of the issue that led me here was accountabiliyy and communication.

I kept telling him in the only way i knew how.please im sorry i know things are getting worse. But this isnt how we are.

I thought we could get through anything.

In his mind he saw a piece of something, he ignored my emotional attachment to it..and i mean i cant blame him, other people never quit.

But even in those moments i knew i wasnt going to be other people.

And suddenly i was alone. I was depressed. I had realized that it wasnt us that was th issue so i tried so hard to communicate more effectively that he got frustrated and said i talked in loops. I felt so alone because i understood his frustration and i just needed him to trust me. But that was the perfect storm when i just got so alone feeling from his inability to just not look at me how i felt at myself. And i honestly tried to fix it in the middle of him running away and the most painful thing was that he couldnt understand and i didnt know how to say it.

I dont blame him for leaving

But a part of me breaks to my very core to know that if he just literally lookrd at me like yes i was going crZy but i was just hurting and overwhelmed.

All i wanted and needed was him.

The worst. Pain was that he didnt see that.

And i needed to explain it. And he didnt let me.

I felt like i was desperatly trying to express something of real explaination. I just honestly was desperate to because he was running.

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moonofinfinity · 6 years ago

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28.01.19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ja8054W5Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERXind9P79w

This will be easy for you. You’re a strong-willed guy with appraisable resilience and you’ve said it multiple times already that you’re good at not caring, so i know this will be easy for you. Everyday ive asked for courage to do this. It seems like all the effort ive done to be better from back then has been slowly getting stripped off away from me violently and i know if this continues, one day ill be left with nothing and back to where i was.

You see, i think we both know that im the one who’s scared to let go. To let go of you. Again. I only realised that the other day. See, you can walk away anytime, because you can, that’s you. That’s your personality, who you can be. If i tell you to go, without hesitation you’ll go. But for me, because i still have you deep within my heart, i dont want to lose you again even if right now the only thing i have of you is a fragment— like a shard from a broken glass. A fragment that im holding onto so hard that blood would trickle down my hands from the broken edges. There were times when i would ask, ‘why did you come back’ and i did ask you that. Your answer didn’t suffice. I was selfish. It didn’t satisfy the whirlwind of thoughts in my head. But then again maybe it’s on me. For re-opening the doors as i did say in my letters that when you do decide to come back, i would be waiting with open arms. They were when you did. But you being around my arms again, it felt like you had thorns sticking out your body because it hurt. I didnt notice it at first, like it was only a small pinch. At the start it wasnt deep, superficial only. Then slowly it got more stronger, more disturbing. It began to prick my skin. The longer this went on, the thorns dug deeper, seeping through my skin until it reached the wound that was partially healed and tore it open once more like it was nothing.

There has been countless of nights where thoughts of you, her, you and her, would consume my nights and urge the tears to flow down. Some were just ugly fat tears and some were just proper breakdowns. I thought it didnt bother me. How you two got back together right after us. At the start it really didnt. I was grateful that you wanted to personally tell me and for me to know the truth. It hit me a few weeks later and oh did it hit. It was compromising my peace when im with you, and when im not.

We’re all selfish beings. Im selfish. Im weak. Im stupid. I admit all of that. I was strong enough to move on before, now i have to be strong to walk away. Walk away from something i once wanted so bad i could hardly think. Oh the irony. I should be ecstatic. Jumping in joy that you’re back in my life. However I’m being torn open, slowly, gradually. It’s taking away from me, when i had so little in the first place. What would be left if i give you my all? The only thing im going to say sorry for is not keeping my end of the bargain. We both said we knew what we were getting ourselves into- no expectations, no nothing. Let it run its course. Right? But actually as a matter of fact i didnt know what i was getting myself into. I wasnt fully healed yet when you appeared out of the blue. I thought i could get through this by pretending i didnt care, didnt give a shit. But unfortunately pretending to be heartless wasnt the answer. Not when i wasnt over us completely. So I’m sorry.

This will be easy for you, my Aden. How long ago since i last called you that. I was finally walking along side of you, even ahead of you. But now i feel like im back to where i was, where i couldnt even reach you no matter how hard i tried. I think i can finally say to myself, that i deserve a better situation than this. A situation where i don’t question where i stand. Whether i should reach out or not, or if im even gonna get a reply. A situation where im imagining the things you’re doing when you’re not with me and jumping into conclusions. A situation where im unsure of myself and memories of before haunting me. Memories of us, memories of you and her. A situation where i have to remind myself what i felt when i was left by myself, to re-live those scenes in my head in the hopes of hurting myself with reality. A situation where i have to imagine the two of you together so that i hurt myself to detach myself from my own feelings, for you. How sick is that. Would you consider it self-harming. I wonder. It might have been late but I know i dont deserve this. To do this to myself. I think i did though-realise this long ago. Instead of paying heed to it, i ignored it. Why? Because the idea that you missed me too to come back engulfed my selfish desires.

For a while ive been selling myself short. Saying to myself that i dont deserve you. I dont deserve the time you give me. Now, i think im strong enough to think what if we ask it the other way. Do I deserve this? I know I’m difficult to love, but I know I am worth loving.

Im a coward. Posting this here instead of messaging you, or telling you about it. I think it’s a defence mechanism, so i dont have to witness you walking away without hesitation. Now i dont know till when you’re going to see this. This is an accumulation of thoughts and wonders built not just in a day, a few to be exact. The barrier i put up strongly to not fall for you again, it’s been slowly being chipped away bit my bit and is on the verge of collapsing. So before it does, i need to do something to stop that from happening. Please don’t be mad. I doubt you will be actually but just leave me with the thought that you’d care one bit at least, okay? At least leave me with that.

I love you. So fucking much that it hurts you being here when i cant have you. Yes i did miss you. Every single time you asked if i did the answer has been always a yes, i did. Thank you for everything and i mean that from the bottom of my heart. I dont have to list the things i got, received, learned and experienced from you and with you, but thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for being yourself while you were with me. For being unapologetic, for being you, for being Neal. My love, my Aden, I won’t ever forget you. Ever. This time im not going to say ‘maybe someday’ because I learned that the word someday is a dangerous word, because it’s just a code word for ‘never’. Another quote i saw about the word someday was from this guy called Tim Ferris and he said, “Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually’, just do it and correct the course along the way.” I’m not going to cling on the hope that maybe someday we’ll find each other again. I’m going to let life happen and if by chance we run to each other then ill let it be.

You didnt even have to read this. You have no obligation to me. We have no ties with each other, no responsibilities. It may even sound over the top to you, that im saying all of this when you and me were just ‘chill’. But these are my feelings that ive kept bottled up while being with you and it’s making me restless. This is the emotional roller coaster ive been through. I dont know if you’d feel guilty after reading all of this but do know that it’s not my intention to do so. I want to be honest, transparent. To say all the things I’ve been wanting to say ever since you came back that I never got to, because of the fear that once I do you’ll let go and leave me on air once again. This time maybe we’ll use a quicksand metaphor. The further I let myself sink, the harder it will be to get out. It’s a scenario where no one is there to save me, not even you, even though I let you threw me in that quicksand.

From this point on, I’m not gonna bother you anymore. I’m not going to bombard you with messages that you might not even read, might not even reply to. I’m not going to ask you to see me, to initiate a meeting that i feel like you’re being forced to go to. You’ve always been bragging about how you’re by yourself, so I’m going to fully fulfil that for you. Our memories from before, the memories you want to preserve so dearly, we’ll leave them alone as it is; memories. Whatever the future holds for you, that I will pray for. You are and have always been in my prayers, and surprisingly so is she. In fact I think I pray for her more than I do for you haha. Whatever the future holds for you, I will always be thankful that I got to be part of your life.

I want you to know this: I’m so thankful to have met you. God has taught me that every person that comes into your life is a lesson. And you were one of the lessons that I am so grateful for. I’m so thankful to have been with you, to know you. To have been with you through the most turbulent times of my life. To grow as person through you, with you. To have been supported by you, loved by you. You are a blessing that will always be in my heart. I will treasure all of that. You will always hold a special place in my heart and in my soul. I loved you with all my being, with all my strength, with all that I had. To the point that it left me with nothing. But I know this for a fact, that I fought hard. I loved harder than I have ever before in my whole life and I know that in itself is a victory and you are the subject of that love. No one can take that away from me, and no one can say otherwise.

See you never, Kiefferdenn.

to infinity and beyond,

to the moon and back,

— Rojaneel.

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anastycrimeboy · 8 years ago

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Honestly, not much of someone who post anything but I feel like I wanted to talk aloud to the world anoynomously and on a format noone would likely look at so eh. Anyways I met you in 7th grade for the first time. Me? I was quite frankly just an antisocial prick. We talked truly for the first time I believe in social studies where you refered to me as "turtle boy" because of the way I sat (think somewhat like L from death note) we had a group assignment, something minor. I remember reading some question outloud I think, misspoke something aloud and had said "Saint Texas" I have no idea why it was so funny at the time but I remember it being one of the inciting incidences of our friendship. At first, I acted quite cold and annoyed towards you and your friend. You two, however, were quite subborn on making me your friend. Something I am quite honestly very greatful for, as i have no doubt my life would be very different had you two not done so. So we became friends. True friends. The closest and best two friends ive ever had the experiance of having. I dont remember much more of consequence happening in our relationships development during 7th grade. Eventually 8th grade rolled around and what a year that was, for both of us, and our mutual friend as well. You and your friend had a tough, depressing year. By December, so had I become immersed within the pit of depression. However when thinking back, I see that maybe that wasnt such a horrible thing. Our mutal suffering had brought us closer together in some ways. We shared thoughts, emotions, memories, things that brought us closer together. At some point through this, I had begun to have feelings for you. I remember vividly how happy I was when we would stay up until 3 A.M talking nonstop about anything. How happy it made me to simply sit there for hours and talk to you and see your beautiful face and hear your wonderful voice, laughter... I knew how I felt about you. I didnt tell you how I felt for a while. Eventually you had gotten with a guy, actually a friend of mine at the time. Man was I jealous of him... He got your first kiss, was I believe your first boyfriend to my knowlege. He got to hold you, cuddle with you, kiss you, be with you in a way I felt I probably never would. Ha, hell how right I was. You were with him for some time. Through this we continued our close relationship, talked for hours, just enjoyed eachothers presence, at least I know I did. I know at some point while you were with him, believe it was around Christmas, I had told you that I liked you. Not in the manner of just being friends but in a romantic manner. Pretty stupid looking bad, who tells someone they like them when they have a boyfriend? It didnt change anything really, you had expressed that that would not happen then at least. You let me off easy when I had told you then, said perhaps someday. I truly took that to heart. Looking bad, I probably shouldnt have haha. Things were awkward for a week or so but things got back to normal between us soon enough, no damage done. I remember being very very envious of your boyfriend, man jealously is such a powerful emotion. Somewhere around Feburary I remember you and him had broken up for good. As bad as it sounds I remember being trilled that had happend, in spite of your obvious greif and pain at the failure of a long term relationship. To be fair, I was young. I didnt truly understand what love was then. More than likely, then what I had felt for you was nothing more than simple infatuation. Although at the same time it was more than that, i cared for you deeply, and honestly, as we both recognize now the guy was a total asshole. So i like to justify that thats part of what I was so thrilled about but I couldnt say for certain. At this point, both our states of mental health were pretty piss poor. Both of us very depressed people, something that had only gotten worse for us both over the year. You became... this bright sun in my everyday life. The one person who would always bring a smile to my face everytime I simply laid eyes upon you. Without you, I felt hallow, and with you I felt like the sun was shinning on my skin on a spring day. I knew full well you didnt feel the same way about me. Deep down I knew you never would truly feel the same way. However I held some feable hope thst maybe, just maybe one day you'd love me like I grew to love you. Sometime around april, or may you and your friend were just about healed from this depression we had suffered, and I had stagnated. Looking bad, im sure that was mostly due to one crucial fact: you two were bound to go to one high school, and me, another. I knew I was losing two people who.... quite frankly were closer to me than my family ever was, even including my beloved deceased father. I remember on the last day of school crying a bloody waterfall. I never conciously thought this at the time, but im sure in my heart I knew: this would cement that our relationship would only go downhill in terms of our closeness, there was no alternative. You see i neglected to mention, we had experianced a bit of a falling out a month and a half before graduation relating to my depression and extreme drug use. You guys eventually so fed up with it you stopped talking to me altogether. This had forced me to stop abusing oxycotten, and in doing so, you accepted me once more as your friend a week or two before school ended. Our other friend however, from this point forward, was no longer a friend of mine. And my fallout with her was permanent. This left me with you as literally my only true close friend. And man the thought of losing you too then was just... Unfathomable. During the summer I recall talking to you somewhat frequently for a month or so. Then, there was a point when I had for some stupid reason, talked about my issues with your sister. God knows why, i sure dont know what the hell i was thinking haha. This led to you being quite rightly pissed, essentially telling me that you were done talking to me until I got my head straight and out of my shithole of a depression. Quite frankly looking back, man was you not talking to me a great motivator. First it got me to stop doing hard drugs, then got me to actually really start to work on changing my mental outlook on life. By the end of the summer we were talking again, friends once more. Perhaps not as close as I wished but thats not suprising. Id be lieing I said I was totally better. That wouldnt happen until February of next year. But I was definetly in a better state than the end of 8th grade. School started, and man did I hate it. I never realized that truthfully, the only reason I could stand school so much was because of how happy seeing you made me. At this time in my life, I had no real self-confidence. I was a smart kid, my techers knew this, my mom knew it, but damn my grades sure as hell didnt reflect it. I hated school so much without you, i skipped probably more than 30 days and walked home in the first semester. We talked, texted. But man did I miss you... I only saw you once that year, during thanksgiving break. That was by far the most fun I have ever had before. We didnt do anything crazy. We just went out, had got orange leaf, went to barns and nobles and got coffee, you dragged into bath and bodyworks.. Haha man I think that was, what? The second? Third time just you and me hung out by ourselves in peron? I remember never wanting that day to end. I remember thinking 'what if everyday could be like this?' My love for you only grew as time went on it seemed. Distance has never dulled my love for you in the slightest. Time went on. By Feburary my mom was getting desperate reguarding my depression and alarming rate of skipping school, so she took me out and placed me in a charter school, self paced, self taught. A place I could avoid everyone and just learn. Did wonders for my confidence and my mental health. Since then ive been just fine, had a great outlook on life. Great work ethic. You were always there, cheering me on as I got better and worked harder. Haha I remember we flirted a little toward the end of that you. You teased me quite often texting me on my phone you little minx hahaha. Ah, yeah that had sent me some mixed singals alright. Our relationship was still quite solid. We were close, had grown up quite a bit for the year before... things seemed good. Summer once again rolled around, we hung out on my birthday. That alone made it my favorite birthday I've had to date. We had gone to the movies, and just went back to my house, smoked a bowl or two, and relaxed and watch some Star Wars. Enjoyed our time together. I remember multiple times wanting nothing more than to get closer to you and just hold you in my arms... Eventually you left. Once again, I couldnt help but feel that strange hallowness I experiance without you. Wishing I was brave enough to try to hold you, kiss you. Summer went by. We kept somewhat in touch. The next year, 10th grade, is when I would say we truly started to experiance an increase in the gap between us. We talked yes, occassionally discussing what was going on in eachother lives. By this point, and this point onward I dont think we ever shared another long conversaion. Never since then have we had one of those wonderful nights we would just stay up and just talk and enjoy the others presence... Nope. Those times seemed to have passed. I tried on occasion to start one of those kinds conversations, but something would always come up, or one of your sisters would interupt is and eventually i'd just let you go as we were no longer talking, ect. I think i may have seen you once that year. I dont truly remember it if we did. That year went by quickly. We kept in touch of course. We would always talk about how much we missed eachother ha... I just worked hard that year. Nothing else to do really. I've always been a bit of a loner socially and dont bother making friends. Did quite well, ended up both my softmore and junior year, and became a senior. You were quite proud of me I remember. Once again, I got to see you on my birthday and, well, it was then I think I really noticed the deaph of how much we had spaced apart. We just kinda watched a movie for a few hours and you left after a while. I remember being nervous the whole time. We hadnt seen eachother in so long I wasnt sure how to act. I still loved you, just as much as ever, but for fucks sake I didn't for the life of me know what to say, what to do, how to act. I didn't really know what to do around you anymore. By then... We seldomly saw eachother over the course two years, hardly spoke the year before. We didnt have recent experiances, or interesting things to talk about. Well I mean at least I didn't. As a bit of a loner all I had to discuss was my acedemic acheivement and video games or music. Im sure you had stuff going on in your life but by then... Im pretty sure we had seperated to a degree where you didn't even know where to begin discussing what was going on with you, nor did I know the questions to ask. So yeah that was awkward. And I remember kicking myself again and again over it. Same thing happened in augest when I went to your house before school started.... Sigh I remember thoughout these years you've had a few boyfriends, by the middle of freshman year I had a much better grasp on the true meaning of love: that when you love someone, you put their needs, their wants, and their happiness before yours. So I was okay with it. I let go of jealousy. What replaced it was this heart wrenching, smoach dropping sadness when you were with someone else. But again, I knew that you'd never truly loved me in the romantic sense, just as friends really. I knew this spite of the fact you had told me otherwise multiple times. I know you were just reassuring me to spare my feelings. And in a way, i thank you for that. Hell at times, I even let myself believe it. But I was somewhat hopeful, some peice of me remained stubborn that one day you just might like me even slightly in a romantic manner. Hell im graduating now, and I still have not dated, kissed, loved, or truly considered being with another girl. Ive always hoped you would be my first everything. My first kiss, first girlfriend, first date. Hell one day I hoped youd be my first and only wife... we'd have a beautiful little girl... Sigh. Just dreams I suppose. Then this year cam along. Things only got worse. We've hardly talked. I mean sure ill text you general well wishes most mornings when I can and have said more "I love yous" than one could probably count but really? Thats about it. Weve met up twice this year for lunch but i feel like the damage has been done already. Yes yes we have seen eachother but you know I find it hasnt actually alleaviated my missing you. Its like... Idk I see you but at the same time I didnt. Both times we just talked about old friends, school, advancements in life. Nothing really significant or personal... Only had two, somewhat awkward, hugs with you this year. When, bloody hell, ive always wanted so much more than that. Now... The year is ending and really I recognize that we are honestly little more than acquaintances. I mean yes we know eachothers history, but bloody hell we hardly talk anymore about anything. We have no idea what the eachothers life is like... Well okay you know what mine is like due to how honestly shallow it is but I hardly know how yours is going. And quite frankly i dont know the questions to ask or the things to say to find out.... I just wish we were as close as we once were... Gods how id give almost anything just to be close friends again, romanctic thoughts aside. Now I see that our drift is just... This gaping raveen the size of the great cayon. And I know its only bound to get worse and eventually end altogether... With me going to college and you your own way with withever you decide to do, likely traveling with your beautiful, adventurous soul. I hope our paths interwine once more in the future... Odds are they wont but I mean you never know what God holds in store for us yeah? Ill always regret not getting the chance to experiance something more with you. Never really trying my hand at something more truly. I was a coward. Quite honestly in some ways though, im glad. You really deserve someone much better than I am. Someone who can make you happy, laugh, and feel joy every minute your with them like you have made me feel. Comfort you when you need help, be there for you when your in pain. These are things I've tried hard to do for you, but could never do perfectly. I really hope you meet a man who can do those things for you. You deserve it more than anyone else. Looking back, I can see that I was lucky that I even ever got to call you a friend. And I was smiled upon by god by the fact that you love(ed) me as a friend. That alone was really more than I had the right to ask for really. Thank you, for everything you have done for me. And helping me become who I am today. I only wish I could have helped you half as much as you have me... I love you, forever and always. And may god bless your life and the path you walk on my love.

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years ago

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Thinking in bets: How to make smarter decisions

I read a lot of books. Nearly every book has some nugget of wisdom I can take from it, but its rare indeed when I read a book and feel like Ive hit the mother lode. In 2018, Ive been fortunate enough to read two books that Ill be mining for years to come. The first was Sapiens, the 2015 brief history of mankind from Yuval Noah Harari. I finished the second book yesterday: Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. Duke is a professional poker player; Thinking in Bets is her attempt to take lessons from the world of poker and apply them to making smarter decisions in all aspects of life. Thinking in bets starts with recognizing that there are exactly two things that determine how our lives turn out, Duke writes in the books introduction. Those two things? The quality of our decisions and luck. Learning to recognize the difference between the two is what thinking in bets is all about. We have complete control over the quality of our decisions but we have little (or no) control over luck. The Quality of Our Decisions The first (and greatest) variable in how our lives turn out is the quality of our decisions. People have a natural tendency to conflate the quality of a decision with the quality of its outcome. Theyre not the same thing. You can make a smart, rational choice but still get poor results. That doesnt mean you should have made a different choice; it simply means that other factors (such as luck) influenced the results. Driving home drunk, for instance, is a poor decision. Just because you make arrive home without killing yourself or anyone else does not mean you made a good choice. It merely means you got a good result. Duke gives an example from professional football. At the end of Super Bowl XLIX, the Seattle Seahawks were down by four points with 26 seconds left in the game. They had the ball with second down at the New England Patriots one-yard line. While everbody expected them to run the ball, they threw a pass. That pass was intercepted and the Seawhawks lost the game. [embedded content] Armchair quarterbacks around the world complained that this was the worst play-call in NFL history. (Ive linked to just four stories there. Theyre all brutal. You can find many more online.) Duke argues, though, that the call was fine. In fact, she believes it was a smart call. It was a quality decision. There was only a 2% chance that the ball would be intercepted. There was a high percentage chance of winning the game with a touchdown. Most importantly, if the pass was incomplete, the Seahawks would have two more plays to try again. But if the team opted to run instead? Because they only had one time-out remaining, theyd only get one more chance to score if they failed. The call wasnt bad. The result was bad. Theres a big difference between these two things, but humans generally fail to differentiate between actions and results. Duke says that poker players have a term for this logical fallacy: resulting. Resulting is assuming your decision-making is good or bad based on a small set of outcomes. If you play your cards correctly but still lose a hand, youre resulting when you focus on the outcome instead of the quality of your decisions. You cannot control outcomes; you can only control your actions. Note: As long-time readers know, I grew up Mormon. One of the songs we were taught as children has this terrific lyric: Do what is right, let the consequence follow. This has become something of a mantra for me as an adult. If I do the right thing whatever that might be in a given context then I cannot feel guilty if I get a poor result. Its my job to do my best. Beyond that, I cannot control what happens. Luck and Incomplete Information Why dont smart decisions always lead to good results? Because we dont have complete control over our lives and we dont have all of the information. Fundamentally, Duke says, results are influenced by luck. Randomness. Chance. Happenstance. She writes: We are uncomfortable with the idea that luck plays a significant role in our lives. We recognize the existence of luck, but we resist the idea that, despite our best efforts, things might not work out the way we want. It feels better to imagine the world as an orderly place, where randomness does not wreak havoc and things are perfectly predictable. Duke contrasts poker (and life) with chess. Chess is a game of complete information, a game of pure skill. Theres no luck involved. At all times, all of the pieces are available for both players to see. There are no dice rolls, nothing to randomize the game. As a result, the better player almost always wins. (When the better player doesnt win, its because of easily identifiable mistakes.) Because chess is a game of complete information, luck isnt a factor the outcome is only a matter of the quality of your decisions. In poker, however, theres a lot you dont know. What cards do your opponents hold? What cards remain in the deck? How likely are your opponents to bluff? And so on. Experienced poker players learn to think in terms of odds. With this hand, I have a 74% chance of winning. I should fold. These cards only give me a 18% chance of coming out ahead. Its because our decisions are made with incomplete information that life sometimes seems so difficult. You can do the right thing and still get poor results. You can opt not to drink on New Years Eve, for instance, but still get blindsided by somebody who did to drink and drive. You made a quality decision, but happenstance hit you upside the head anyhow. Duke cites a scene from The Princess Bride as an example of how incomplete information affects the outcomes of our decisions. Criminal mastermind Vizzini and the Dread Pirate Roberts engage in a battle of wits: [embedded content] Vizzini pours two goblets of wine, then Roberts (actually our hero, Westley, in disguise) poisons one of them with deadly ioacane powder. The challenge is for Vizzini to choose the non-poisoned goblet. Vizzini cackles with glee when Roberts/Westley downs the poison but then falls dead after drinking his own goblet. It turns out both goblets had been poisoned, but Roberts had spent the previous few years building an immunity to iocane powder. Vizzini made a quality decision based on the information he had, but he didnt have all of the information: both goblets were poisoned, and his opponent in this battle of wits was immune to the poison in the first place! Thinking in Bets Duke argues that in order to make smarter decisions, we have to embrace both the idea that theres a lot of luck in life and the reality that were swimming in uncertainty. Theres a stigma in our culture about appearing ignorant, about being unsure. Duke says that becoming comfortable with uncertainty and not knowing is a vital step to becoming a better decision-maker. Admitting that we dont know has an undeservedly bad reputation, she writes. What makes a decision great is not that it has a great outcome. A great decision is the result of a good process, and that process must include an attempt to accurately represent our own state of knowledge. That state of knowledge, in turn, is some variation of Im not sure. Duke suggests that by moving to a framework of Im not sure, were far less likely to fall into the trap of black and white thinking, of false certainty. She cites Stuart Firesteins TED talk about the pursuit of ignorance: [embedded content] We should be pursuing high-quality ignorance. Based on all of this, how then can we make smarter decisions? Duke says that we should stop thinking in terms of right and wrong. Few things are ever 0% or 100% likely to occur. Few people are ever 0% or 100% right about what they know or believe. Instead, we should think in bets. Decisions are bets on the future, Duke writes, and they arent right or wrong based on whether they turn out well on any particular iteration. An unwanted decision doesnt make our decision wrong if we thought about the alternatives and probabilities in advance and allocated our resources accordingly. Duke says that because pro poker players learn to think in terms of odds during their games, they transfer this way of thinking to everyday life. Job and relocation decisions are bets, she writes. Sales negotiations and contracts are bets. Buying a house is a bet. Ordering the chicken instead of the steak is a bet. Everything is a bet. Just as each poker bet carries a different chance of success (based on the quality of the hand, the hands of the other players, etc.), so too the bets we make in life carry different chances of success. And our personal beliefs have (or should have) varying degrees of certainty. Duke wants readers to begin thinking about their beliefs and decisions in terms of probabilities rather than in terms of black and white. Turns out I already do this to a small degree but usually for minor stuff. In fact, Ive done it several times in the past week. A few days ago, I was listening to a Big Band station on Pandora. The song Green Eyes came on. I wonder what year this is from? I thought. I listened to the vocals, to the band, to the recording quality. I think theres an 80% chance this song is from 1939 give or take two years, I thought. I looked it up. The song was released in 1941. (I listen to a lot of older music, and I play this game often.)Because its been hot in Portland lately, folks in my neighborhood have all been taking early morning walks. We all tend to follow the same two-mile loop because its easy. Ive started playing a game when I pass somebody. Okay, the dog and I passed David Hedges at the llama farm. Where will we encounter him on the top side of the loop? Ill be its between Roys house and the bottom of the hill. Its fun for me to see how accurate my guesses are. Duke believes that we should each do this sort of thing whenever we make a decision. Before we commit to a course of action, we should think about possible outcomes and how likely each of those outcomes is to occur. Lets say youve only got $200 in the bank and its a week from payday. Should you join your friends for that weekend motorcycle trip? Or should you save that cash in case something goes wrong? Or, thinking farther in the future, what outcomes are you seeking in life? What decision will improve the odds of achieving those outcomes? Or, imagine that youre trying to decide whether or not to buy a home. As you consider the possibilities, think about the probability that each possible future will occur. Dont simply cling to the outcome youre hoping for. Be objective. If the odds of success seem reasonable, then pursue your desired course of action. But if they dont, then pull the plug. Duke writes: In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing. We are constantly deciding among alternative futures: one where we go to the movies, one where we go bowling, one where we stay home. Or futures where we take a job in Des Moines, stay at our current job, or take some time away from work. Whenever we make a choice, we are betting on a potential future. Every choice carries an opportunity cost. When you choose to save for the future, for instance, youre giving up pleasure in the present. Or, if you choose to spend in the present, youre giving up future financial freedom. Final Thoughts

For a long time, Ive argued that the best books about money are often not about money at all. Thinking in Bets is another example of this. While Duke uses plenty of personal finance examples, the book itself is about self-improvement. Its not a money manual. Yet the info here could have a profound impact on your financial future. Theres a lot more in this book that I havent covered in my review. (Ive really only touched on the first third of the material!) For me, the biggest takeaway comes early: Its vital to separate decision quality from results. The rest of the book explores how to improve the quality of your decisions. Among the strategies Duke advocates are these: Learn to examine your own beliefs. Be your own devils advocate. If youre certain about something, explore the opposing viewpoint. (If youre liberal, seek conservative opinions. If youre conservative, look for liberal voices.) Be skeptical of yourself and others.Build a network of trusted advisors, people who can give you feedback on your beliefs and decisions. But dont make these support groups homogeneous. Draw on people from a variety of backgrounds and belief systems. If you only associate with people who think the same way you do, you never give yourself a chance to grow, and youll never spot possible errors in your thinking. (This is like the current problems Facebook is facing with its deliberately-created echo chambers, which only serve to reinforce the way people think instead of challenging them.)When you make decisions, think of the future. Use barriers and pre-commitment to do the right thing automatically. Practice backcasting, a visualization method in which you define a desired outcome then figure out how you might get there. The book is dense dense! with ideas and information. When I finished it, I wanted to go back and read it again. Plus, I wanted to plow through the nearly 200 other works that Duke lists in her bibliography. I feel like I could spend an entire year diving deeper into this book and its related reading. But, as much as I wish it were, Thinking in Bets isnt perfect. A strong argument could be made that this material would work better as a TED talk or a 5000-word essay in The Atlantic (or on Get Rich Slowly!). The book is so packed with info that it sometimes loses its way. Theres also a lot of repetition too much repetition. Plus, it seems to lack a clear sense of organization. These quibbles aside, Thinking in Bets has earned a permanent place on my bookshelf. If I ever get around to putting together a Get Rich Slowly library (a project Ive been planning for years!), this book will be in it. I got a lot out of it. And I bet you will too. https://www.getrichslowly.org/smarter-decisions/

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years ago

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Thinking in bets: How to make smarter decisions

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