Crossroads.

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography

I have come to a bit of a crossroads in my life and not sure which path to take.  In the early years of my life, I was an open book.  I shared my thoughts and feelings and as a result, got hurt.  I am now looking at my life and deciding again if I want to let people in or continue to build walls.  Do I take the left path or right?

Through life experiences, job interactions I have had, and people I have met, I have become jaded to the world.  I’d rather be alone than letting someone see the parts of me that I can’t bear taking out of hiding.  I was not always like this, as mentioned above.  I use to be eager to meet people and wasn’t afraid of what might happen if I open up to people too soon.  That has changed.  Part of it has come from the ever-presence of social media, but it is not solely to blame.  We all grow up thinking our generation was the best and the ones following ours do not have the same values, ethics or morals we did.  And we are right.

For me, I think it is about loss.  I have lost friends, family members, pets and coworkers that I trusted and confided in throughout my life.  Some I lost to death, others to just moving on to another aspect of life without me in it, but in each specific case, they took a piece of me with them.  I have had some deep and candid conversations with my dad, cousin, friends, pets, and coworkers.  In most cases, those were private conversations that were between us, but ever so often things would be released.  The best listeners are my dogs.  They listen, never judge and love you none the less.  By my mid-twenties I had already begun the process of building walls.  I was learning there were very few I could trust.  Very few.  Now, these walls have had many layers and many forms.  The most obvious is the one where I reveal only what I want to who I want.  This is the less risky of the layers.  Then there is the lack of confidence I have grown accustomed too.  I tend to doubt my decisions when it comes to my life and internally suffer when a decision I made results in a negative outcome.  These come from years of my decisions and more specifically the spotlight put on the negative outcomes of those decisions by ones you trust and love.  Along with this, is the constant comparison I have been subject to by my family.  To this day I hear about the successes of many of my former classmates and friends have when I speak to my mom.  Her intent is not to degrade me but to point out the success of others, but it has and always will hurt me.  I never feel like I live up to her idea of success.

Today’s culture is super quick to point out others’ faults or flaws.  With the ability to hide behind social media, text, emails and IM’s it is much easier for people to be spineless and critical of others.  Gone are the days of encouragement, having real sit down conversations with people and likely in my case to reveal my true thoughts and feelings.  This blog has helped me lay out many of my thoughts and feelings that I would not feel comfortable doing in person.  I want to get to a place where I do not naturally go to the negative and point out the faults of others.  I also want to get to the place where receiving those types of criticisms do not cut me so deep.  Many of my friends, my son and even my wife point out my perceived error in judgment or logic, and I think it is a result of society not malicious intent from them.  Again I am guilty as well of this.

As I grow older things tend to bother me less and less but that criticism coming from those you love will always hurt.  So I have internal questions I must answer.  Do I open up more to people, risking possible vulnerabilities and opening myself up to negativity, or do I continue to build these walls to protect what I hold dear to myself?  I want to surround myself with genuine people who if need be I can have a civil, debate on a subject without negative recourse or implications.  We are all humans, and all have opinions but what is lost is the ability to listen and respect others’ opinions without a knee-jerk reaction and an instant label assigned.  True people that love you accept you for who you are, no matter what.  We all need a swift kick in the butt from time to time, but the constant berating of people and negative reactions/responses to everything has got to end.

I have kept this blog mainly private for the risk of many of the things I mentioned above.  I must also contemplate revealing this to members of my family at some point, again at the risk of being criticized.  I am one man with opinions based on my life and my experiences.  Am I right, am I wrong?  No.  I am just telling you what I think and how I feel.

I have some decisions to make.  One is do I continue this blog as a form of therapy?  Do I move to the Vlog arena?  Or do I stop and just keep a journal?  I also need to decide what I plan to reveal to others.  Do I put on a false bravado or be the true person I hope to be?  More to come.

Until next time,

Tim