Addictions and self-destruction

We often feel imprisoned even if we live in a free world. We can get chained by our own minds without realizing it.

With all that we have within our reach, from such a wide variety of foods, transportation means and entertainment, how come we feel do depressed, so anxious, so disconnected? Is it because we’re constantly feeding the body and forget about the soul? Society grew larger, it became more complex and we’re constantly looking to give life a meaning. We buried ourselves in numerous activities and we forgot to listen to our internal voice.

We are continuously searching for a purpose, for something to fill the void within ourselves, to feed the lonely beast that lives inside us and craves for the unattainable dream: the perfect balance between body and spirit.

Everyone wants to feel important, meaningful, to have a clear purpose. We want to live in a world that gives us stability, safety, thus a world that is predictable, easy to live in, easy to feed our needs. The inability to obtain this made us anxious, frustrated, even threw us to the edge of despair. Now, we want to run away from these feelings, we want to escape, to find a refuge someplace else. and if the physical world can’t give us the sense of comfort any longer, we resort to fantasy, to living in our own minds. We detach ourselves from the persons that are close to us, we even blame them for our unhappiness.

We can easily get confused and this pushes us into making unhealthy decisions. We put our minds to something and we get frustrated and angry when we can’t achieve our goal. We look around us and compare our lives to others, our properties and income, we compare our bodies or our partners, our family and we get full of greed and envy and we think life’s unfair because others have it so much better than us. And we drown in jealousy, our minds fill up with darkness. While searching for something to fill this void inside of us, we succumb to addictions. Thus, our lives become a story of sheer despair.

Sometimes a trauma can push us into becoming addicted to substances, alcohol, sex, self-harm, and so on. It’s always easier to find solace in all the wrong places and, without realizing it, we only get hurt more.

In our desire to escape reality, we looked for other means to bury ourselves in, to silence that screaming voice that doesn’t let us have any peace of mind. But addictions only give us a false sense of happiness, it doesn’t provide us the real thing. Addictions are a very cheap replacement for what we really need. It’s easier to drink your sorrows, it’s easier to give in and let despair swallow you, it’s easier to throw yourself on the couch and use entertainment as a form of escape. This is how we bring destruction upon ourselves with our own hands. And we always blame the others or the circumstances.

Maybe we can’t achieve something because it was not made for us, maybe we’re not working hard enough or maybe we’re struggling to much, maybe we need some more time or to change our perspective. Cause and effect, everything happens for a reason. Maybe we took some wrong turns at some point in our lives, maybe there’s something that cannot be undone. Even so, addictions are not the answer.