When I began to appreciate what I had, a loving family, a roof over my head, gainful employment, health (despite being overweight and a little achy), and hobbies, my outlook improved. While momentarily pleasurable, intoxication does not create happiness. It will never create happiness. Ever. Realizing this caused a seismic shift in my perspective.
Over the past few years, I would reflect on my lost creativity. I often wondered where the hell it disappeared to. When I think of the times I was happiest, truly in my happy place, it was when I was creating. I falsely believed that alcohol and marijuana would somehow unleash my creativity. Sadly, this false belief drove much of my drinking and drugging over the past twenty years.
And while it’s been a bit more than 420 days since I last smoked pot, consumed an edible, vaped, etc (472 days as of the publishing of this blog), I had an interesting convergence of emotions overcome me when I finally reached that magical 420th day.
In his book Ego Is The Enemy, Ryan Holiday delves into why and how ego can be both our greatest asset and biggest liability. As an asset, ego drives us to succeed in a competitive world. Alternatively, it can at the same time become the undercurrent that drags us down and becomes our eventual undoing.
Firstly, self care is not selfish. Consider this: how can you reasonably take care of others who depend on you if you can’t/don’t take care of yourself? The answer is, you can’t. Not for long anyway before everything starts to fall apart.