Motivation to change my life. TODAY (what happens if I don't)
Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster- I have written the below negative passage to help motivate me (and hopefully others) as to what happens if I don't change my ways TODAY. I got the idea from a YouTube video on goal setting- to use a positive passage to describe what happens if you DO achieve your goals, and a negative one to help describe how shitty life would be if you don't. The below is my 1st attempt at the latter, using today as the day the direction of my life changes:
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I don’t wake up, I collapse into consciousness every morning, tired, lethargic, heavy and drained. I struggle to maneuver myself into a sitting position before being acutely reminded of my many ailments. An ache here, a pain there, a stabbing sensation in my chest. I heave my huge, flabby, disfigured body into an upright position, a movement that causes me lightheadedness, and a shortage of breath. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Fat rolls hang off my every bone, my face looks old, creased, and oblong where even the fat has accumulated enough to start dragging downwards towards my multiple chins. Deep, droopy bags appear underneath the sunken pits of despair and quiet desperation that are my eyes. My hair is wispy and thinning, my skin blotchy, pimpled and rough. I look like someone who has given up on life. And maybe I have. I check my blood sugar as an academic exercise to confirm what my eyes are already telling me from the mirror. 12.7. Twelve point fucking seven. After 12 hours of fasting (overnight) and I’m still at 12.7. I sigh to myself, knowing this is rock bottom, as I silently sit and contemplate my state, and how I got here.
Years ago, I weighed 120kg, I was faced with a choice: to change- or continue on the path I was on. I chose the latter. My weight fluctuated but never dipped below 110kg again. I fell into worse habits of less activity. My eating became even more emotional. I was eating shit but I didn't care because for the 3 seconds I had the food in my mouth, my endorphins were running high. I felt better about myself for those brief interludes between looking at myself and feeling worthless and a failure. So I carried on. Many opportunities came to change my ways. Many reminders- watching my parents self-inject insulin to control their blood sugars, seeing my sons wanting an active dad, my own personal knowledge of my atrocious actions and upcoming results. But nothing changed. I continued, thinking another day would pass without incident, and another, and another. Eventually, it didn't. I was walking up the stairs when I collapsed. Sharp stabbing pain my chest. Blackness. Nothingness. An ambulance ride into A+E later, and while recovering with a chest full of tubes in a godforsaken ward, the words HEART ATTACK reverberated in my ears. At the age of 35...a fucking heart attack. The insides of my blood vessels looking like a horror movie, pancreas, shot, liver, fucked, heart, overworked, and kidneys beginning to shut down.
I wake up and see my mother crying over me, my dad pacing in the corner wondering what the fuck to do. My wife on the chair next to me, tears in her eyes as she wonders if I'll survive, and my children. My beautiful 4 children in the opposite corner, huddled together as if to protect themselves from the harshness of the reality unfolding around them. Their fat piece of shit dad, in a hospital bed of his own making. A failure to himself, to the rest of the family, and to them. The blameless children who’s dad did not control his fork long enough to not fuck everything up.
The next few months were a blur. Hospital visits, tablets, infusions, touch and go. Prayers. Thunder rumbling. Rain pouring. Tears flowing.
I emerged on the other side. On enough medication to run a field hospital. Rattling as I walked. On three times a week dialysis for the kidney damage, and on 26 tablets for the other shit I’ve fucked up. Wheezy. Can’t walk. Can’t exercise if I wanted to. Still fat, nothing shifting on that front now. Weak. Disappointed. The butt of quiet risky jokes amongst those I considered close, and worse than that, pity from all around me. All accomplishments preceding this moment, paled into obscurity. No one remembers the first class degrees, the successful marriage, the unending ambition and desire to strive and achieve. All of that shit is gone. All that’s left is whatever the fuck I am today. A fat, empty, shell of medicated flesh. A corpse waiting to actualise and be dumped into the ground where I belong. Where I won’t hurt those around me. Where there’s some possibility of positive memories to resurface to my loved ones. Where I’m no longer a burden. A gaping reminder of what failure is.
Depression is a friend of mine these days. I name it, I talk to it. I no longer consider it an affliction, but a therapy for what I am. I am in a dark place. In all aspects of life. Money making, friends, family, hobbies, all that shit is gone. All that’s left is the next breath. The next step. The next minute, hour, and day. That’s it.
I wish I could go back to August 16th 2021. When I was sitting and hypothesising my life. Thinking about the fork in the road I was on, I wish I had made a different choice. I could have had it all. Ironically, having the proverbial cake and eating it, could have been the result had I not eaten the fucking cake. Again and again.
If I could go back to that fateful day, I’d say to myself to let go of the past where things had gone well, or not so well. I’d say don't make your health choices in the future or the past. I’d say remember that you only have today. Only the present moment. I’d speak to myself and not stop speaking until I was convinced the message had got through. “Your choices define your day. And your days define your life. Unfortunately, an accumulation of bad choices over enough days will rub out almost any good choices you’ve ever made”. If I could go back to that day, I’d tell myself to take the other direction to the one I was headed on. I would say the effort will be worth it, if only to avoid seeing those tears in the eyes of your loved ones, if only to avoid seeing the heart crushing disappointment on the faces of those that care about you and had such high hopes, if only to avoid sitting here upon waking, and staring into your own reflection, into the two dark pools of self-loathing and regret encased by your eyes, if only to avoid arriving at this moment, with only similar moments to expect, with only your own self to blame.
August 16th 2021 was the day I decided to change my life. It was the day I decided that I would no longer contribute to the above story. That I would learn from my projections, hypothesising, and fears. It was a painful day, but ultimately, one of the most important days of my life.
When will yours be, and what will it teach you?
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