A friend of mine has inspired me to write this. This friend I’ve known for quite a while, many years in fact. We may not be the text ten times everyday kinda friends but you don’t need to talk everyday to delineate closeness with someone.
It’s the substance of the friendship that matters, not the tally of how many times you talk per day.
So this friend is going through some shit. Hey, aren’t we all at some point? But this shit hit home with me because I’ve been through it too. The shit is, what are you willing to sacrifice for your own happiness?
Sorry, happiness is not selfish. It’s necessary. Like the oxygen masks on a plane that suddenly pop down in an emergency.
The stoic flight attendants happily explain to you the flight rules right before take off: the emergency exits are this way and that, stay in your seat while the seat belt light is on, the drink cart will be around shortly (thank god) and, in case of an emergency, here’s how to operate the oxygen masks that will heartstoppingly deploy from the secret compartment above. PUT YOURS ON FIRST, THEN HELP THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU!
Geez! Got it lady! (Or dude). But why do they say that? So emphatically and so life threateningly? Because they know what’s up.
You can’t help someone else until you first help yourself otherwise both of your lives are at risk.
Losing your happiness is life threatening. Your happiness is that oxygen mask, giving you breath, life, in the face of utter disaster.
As I said in a previous writing, it’s the crazy people who know what’s up. And yes, people who choose working on an airline are crazy (to me). Long hours, never home, flying in a potential coffin every day (technically auto accidents kill more people but for sake of dramatics I’ll leave that sentence where it is).
Yeah, these are the crazy people. (Along with restaurant people. Ask me how I know that. 
) I love them all. Break out of that cubicle you guys!!
Anyway, getting off on a tangent here. My main thought is the line these people have to say at their “crazy” job is actually gold. Sheer gold. You absolutely can’t help anyone until you first help yourself. And you absolutely can’t be happy with anyone else until you’re happy with yourself.
Unfortunately the path to happiness is sometimes paved with casualties.
The casualties can range from co-workers and acquaintances to sadly friends, loved ones, even a soulmate. The wounded may turn out to be a boss you like at a job you hate, the family you care about as you leave them to move across the country, a friend you’ve just grown apart from or your significant other who is a really nice person but that you’re just not in love with anymore.
What to do?
You have to do what that flight attendant told you to do. You have to help yourself first. (Actually, you don’t “have” to, no one is your boss. Except maybe Regret. He’s a bitch of a boss.) But in my humble opinion you do “have” to or should at least want to.
It will be sad though making whatever decision is in front of you that will produce a casualty. Can’t sugarcoat it for you. It’s sad to make yourself happy sometimes.
A lot of times happiness comes with hurt.
And its gonna hurt. Gonna hurt them and you.
Sometimes you have to make hard decisions in life that hurt people. And to know that a decision you made caused pain to another human well, no way around it, that’s gut wrenching.
A casualty hurts. Hurts like that twisted ankle that’s really painful at first, does get better, but years later still twangs every now and then. Never fully goes away.
But what if I or you or anyone never hurt those people? Never created a casualty? Stayed stuck in our miserable job, discontented friendship, unfulfilled relationship because we didn’t want to hurt anyone?
It’s like the people who say they’ll “stay together for the kids”. Guess what? The kids probably already know you’re miserable. They know, I know, hell your likable boss at that crappy job probably knows. We all know.
What we all don’t know in that moment is that breaking those shackles of misery, in the end, brings everyone happiness, yes even the kids.
Those people that we hurt, in the long run, maybe long, long, long run, will eventually be okay and they’ll eventually be happy again too. Breaking away from that relationship, job, friend, significant other is the best thing you can do, for them and yourself.
Why stay shackled to something or someone that suffocates your happiness?
Break the chains. Spread your wings and fly.
Another friend of mine told me that one time. Through tears and smiles and sadness he told me to spread my wings and fly. He was my casualty. He and my other friends and my family who I left when I did in fact chose to move across the country several years ago.
I chose the path of hard resistance, the unguaranteed path, but it was at least the path of no regret albeit strewn with my own casualties.
My friend cried, I cried, we all cried. I almost second guessed myself. But through the pain and the tears, I knew in my heart that I was making the right decision, the decision to take a chance on happiness. I’ll never regret all those tears.
Sometimes these hard choices succeed, sometimes they fail. But even the failing is still worth taking the chance.
Living a life for the sake of anything or anyone but yourself is sad. There could be a better, more sophisticated word there besides “sad” but I really can’t think of a better one at the moment. That’s basically, gutturally what it is…just plain sad. For you, for them, for everyone.
I’m not saying to be an asshole and give the finger to that boss, friend, family member, significant other and skip on out the door and never look back. You’ll feel remorse and empathy (hopefully) for the casualties in your life. That’s a good thing. It means you’re human. It means you care.
And thank you for caring. Not enough people do anymore. But you have to care about yourself first. It’s not selfish.
Like I’ve said many times before, you get one time around in life. (This one at least. We get many lives, I believe, but that’s to discuss for another day). But in this life, sometimes you have to make hard decisions and draw a line in the proverbial sand. The job, person, whatever it is you care about may be on the other side of the line.
They are the casualty.
But they are not mortally wounded.
They will survive. And so will you.
CM
12/15/19
