A Single Moment

It’s amazing how much a single thought for a single moment can create a lifetime of struggle. Today, more than anytime in history, we see how saying something can eventually be turned against you. We see how ideas of the past can stain a person’s reputation even after they’ve now changed that opinion. Learning to hold your tongue in a moment of anger or passion is crucial to survival in this day of constant recorded media.

I was thinking about how I don’t keep a journal. When I started writing this blog, I often debated between it being like a journal or just kind of randomness in my head. I decided on randomness. This decision was based a lot on the stains of a moment. What would happen if I wrote something I felt in the moment that faded by the next day? I would have to answer to anyone reading on why I felt like that and justify how my brain processes trauma or anger or any other emotion.

Journals are good to record history, but they also contain moments and moments that may build people, but they don’t define people. I don’t keep a journal as well as I should. A lot of that is because I fear writing how I feel in a moment and that becoming a permanent page in my book of life. Imagine feeling frustrated, then writing to escape, you list all the things frustrating you, just to realize it was all because you were getting sick. Suddenly, all the frustration makes sense to you, but when others read those words, they wonder if you’re angry with your situation.

Feelings are so complex that we don’t even really understand them ourselves. Writing can be a personal outlet to get those emotions at your level, but words aren’t the same as emotions. That’s why I’ve found it hard to write in a journal. Sometimes, words have to spill all over the page, often a mix of meaningful and pointless words, before I understand the emotions causing them. I even look back now embarrassed at some things I wrote, understanding now why I felt that way.

I do feel like a journal is good. There’s nothing like looking down on an old you and being able to say, “its all going to work out. Don’t lose hope,”. It can be good for your family to really break down who you were and how you became the person they knew. The challenge we each have is allowing the good to overcome the bad.

We often let the negative moments define people. It is so much easier for us to tear someone down for a bad moment, then to build them up for a good moment. Like the phrase “misery loves company”, I think imperfection loves imperfection. Life is a race to be above the people around us, and when you see an opportunity to lower someone’s status in the pool, we do it.

The biggest challenge I think all people face is learning to let people’s good moments play a deeper part in how we feel about them. Let go of some of the bad moments and allow the good to shine. Anyone can be better, but they don’t keep getting better if we only remind them of when they were worse. People only get better when we recognize their effort to be better.