Today I got the most wonderful email from a reader of my writings. They were responding to my writing about overwhelming loneliness. I talked about how much I glamorized and envied my sister's magnetic personality, and how much it made me feel lonely in contrast. I retained this memory and I have moments where I feel like I'm living it right now but that's okay because I can tell reality and my personal history apart.
The reader gave me a heartfelt overview of their relationship with loneliness and shared some really wonderful stories about history with friends. Some sentences made me reflect on similar circumstances in social relationships and some sentences made me pensive over the tragedy of relationships that fall apart over time, to nobody's fault.
The reader closed the email by saying "I hope my story ends like you, finding people i relate and not feeling this lonely in the end." and I wanted to talk a little bit more about this today.
I don't foresee a long life for me. I don't mean this in a cryptic, "Hehe I'm gonna die soon and I'm not telling you why" kind of a thing. But even if I die tomorrow, the important thing for me is: my story is not done yet. There's a very real chance that I start suffering again and I look over my writings with a regretful tear in my eye. "Ah, the good old days when I thought I was so over things".
If there's one thing I learned how to do well with my practice, it's to go on whether things are good, bad, or anything in between. I do my 108 bows when I wake up feeling great. I do my 108 bows when I wake up feeling like total shit. I write my writings when I feel super motivated to write and I write when I don't feel like it at all. And that's what allows for this kind of wonderful interaction to happen.
Imagine I only write when I want to. Chances are, I'm going to have more and more reasons to not write because guess what?! I'm human and I'm lazy too! If I only did 108 bows when I feel wonderful, I'm likely never going to do it because it's such a hard action that defies logic.
If I stop talking to people because I don't feel lonely anymore, if I stop listening to others because I feel quite good, I know there will be an opportunity for me to regret. Ah! Why didn't I listen to my friends when I had then? The nice thing is I know really well what it's like to regret and regret is like the one thing I want to avoid with all my power.
What I want to tell my friend who emailed me today is, we're on the same boat. I'm not at some ideal where nothing changes anymore. I also hope my story doesn't end with profound loneliness, so I practice happiness. Some days I'll be disappointed like you, and some days you'll feel connected with people like I do today. So we are friends on the same path of life, and in that spirit I hope you receive my friendship today and you won't feel lonely.
Billy Seol
July Life Coach
julylifecoach.com
