I think about how the title of this post used to apply to my life and it scares the hell out of me. It’s shocking to look back and know that I truly felt this way for a couple of years. The consequences of thinking I hated my life had such a forceful negative impact on my health and my mental frame of mind that I have no doubt that had I not found a way to change how I felt at that time, I would not be here today. The sad truth is, back at that dark place that I was in, I didn’t CARE if I was here anymore. Every day all I could think about was I want to be happy, and I wasn’t. It didn’t seem like there was any reason to stay if it was going to be that miserable all the time. Having made every effort to change my reality has created an entirely different mindset for me. My experience has left me with a passion to help people that are living through the same situation that I was in so that they will know they are not alone and that they, too, can change their life.
If you are currently where I was, or are beginning to think you hate life, I hope you stick around and continue to read what I have to say. Your life can change and this change can happen as soon as you accept that only YOU can make this change for yourself. Please believe that your life is going to be wonderful as soon as you begin working on your problems. The day will come that you never think “I hate my life” again. It’s not going to happen overnight but slowly you are going to have more good moments than bad moments and, finally, one day soon you will realize that “Oh my God! I can’t believe I ever felt that way!”
Spiraling down into a depression is a slow, methodic process for most people. It kind of creeps up on you before you have a chance to realize what is going on and suddenly you’re engulfed. You’ll make excuses for your sadness, your anger, your frustration because we like to blame our problems on something/someone else before we will even consider that maybe our own choices are creating our misery. Here’s the thing, if you find that you are negative all the time then you need to stop and think about what’s going on in your life. Negativity is the beginning of a long, painful road. Stop the process before it gets out of hand.
Our brain easily adapts to behavior that we keep repeating, quickly becoming a habit. Repeating negative emotions or behavior becomes second nature without your realizing what is taking place. Before you know it, you’ve become a negative, whiny, miserable person. Of course, you believe that this is a result of other people’s behavior. This is your first warning signal that you’ve got to stop and analyze yourself. Choosing to continue to blame others will propel you deeper and deeper. Other people may certainly be contributing to the problem but what you need to understand is that YOU are letting their behavior affect you this harshly.
If you’ve gone deeper into the habit of negativity, you begin to believe that there is no hope. I hate life may be becoming a bad habit with you. This belief causes you to become even more confused, sad, angry, or whatever emotion that you are fighting. While in the midst of this issue you will NOT be able to see the way out very clearly. I truly believed that I knew what I was doing and that there weren’t any answers. This belief caused me to go even deeper. There seemed to be no answer to how I could become happier. This realization scared me to death. I knew that something was terribly wrong, but I didn’t know that it was with ME. I thought it was everyone around me.
Let me jump ahead here and let you know that once I came to terms with my thought processes and realized I needed to make a change with how I perceived people and how I let them affect me, everything changed. This is not to say that the people that were playing a negative role in my life had nothing to do with my issues. They did. Some people believe differently than others and have different moral compassses. This is how the world will always be. The problem was with how greatly I let my differences with them affect my reality and my happiness. I eliminated contact with some of these people that didn’t need to affect my life, came to terms with my ability to handle conflict and differences with other people, and I have learned to manage my stress, my emotions and my judgements more appropriately. I’ve finally learned how to be happy.
What I’m trying to help you realize is that yes, other people do cause part of the problems you may be having, but once you acknowledge the part you are playing in your life’s unhappiness, you will be able to choose more carefully the people that you surround yourself with and you will make better choices. Some people are plain toxic to be around. Too much time spent in their space results in bringing you closer and closer to their negativity. You don’t want to get stuck there. You don’t HAVE to choose to remain in a continuously negative environment. Until they learn to manage themselves better, stay away from them. Some people never break the negativity cycle. You don’t have to choose to be around this type of person on a regular basis.
An entire section of this site will be dedicated to “I hate my life” conversations and strategies that will help you move forward. To start with I just wanted to get this out there as soon as possible in case any of you are looking for the same kinds of answers to the same kinds of problems that I was having for so long. I was so afraid of where the future was going and I couldn’t fathom how to handle my life with the way I was feeling. I’ve worked through that period and every day is a gift now. Please know that you can make it through this period of your life also. You can learn how to be happy. And know that you will come out on the other side all the better for having gone through this.
I’ll be posting more content on this particular subject and I hope I’ll get better at writing in a way that will best help you. Until then, if you’re searching for answers that might best help you begin to make the progress you are looking for to change your attitude about your life, take a look at some of the books I highly recommend. Each of them gave me specific moments of clarity that changed my world and helped me to become the person I am today. I refer to all of them again and again and I can’t say enough how helpful they have been for me. If you’ve never read books of this sort because you think they don’t apply to you just give them a chance and see how it goes. You don’t need to waste the money on them if you don’t have the funds available. Check them out at the local library. If your library doesn’t have them, ask your librarian to order them from another library. You’ll be glad you did!
If you’re interested in the additional chapters that I will be posting regarding this subject matter please sign up for my RSS feed. Until then, keep learning about yourself and know that every tiny step will get you closer to changing your life. Don’t suffer alone, reach out to others that can help you.