Leading Your Life

Facing Reality to Live Your Best Life

It’s Friday. My friend put her dog to sleep a day ago. On June 27, 2024, we just had the first presidential debate in the USA between a convicted felon and a geriatric, senile senior. Rent prices in San Diego, California, are $3,000 and up for a one-bedroom in a rough neighborhood. Any rational person could conclude, “The world is fucked.”

I don’t have coaching clients today, so I woke up around seven in the morning, weighed myself, and drank coffee to ameliorate the brain fog from the delta-8 edible I took last night. I feel completely disillusioned by life and struggle to find the point of it all. Honestly, this isn’t depression; it is oppression with the illusion of autonomy. In other words, I feel crushed under the weight of dystopia.

There is a totalitarian regime that runs the world via the internet. I’m not even sure what is fact and fiction any longer. AI is unleashed and, in some ways, unhinged. There are now apps where AI schedules every moment of your day. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s grooming. Nonetheless, this is where we are in the evolution of “human” existence. We are either influencers or being influenced. We either work as employees or are managed through our tax brackets, loopholes notwithstanding.

Granted, more humans are living longer than ever. I don’t think that’s a good thing. I know the rainforests, oceans, and anywhere animals had a home that have been turned into subdivisions have not benefited from the proliferation of chimps with a vocabulary, which is what most humans are.

We celebrate celebrities, call people heroes who are not, and idolize billionaires. Why? What have they actually contributed to the salvation of our souls? As a cruel irony, blind innovation, such as cloning, AI, and plastic, yields proportional amounts of devastation weighted against their benefits.

The price of innovation is isolation. Men are on the verge of being rendered useless. Women continue to be cogs in the global wheel of servitude to structures defined by men. Then there is the cultural and figurative “Island of Dr. Moreau” that we live in; a story about an island inhabited by a mad scientist who created human-like hybrids. I’d argue that psychologically, 80% of the planet is a human-like hybrid ruled by instinct, distorted reality, rationalization, and blood-lust impulses. The lust for power is evident in organizations like Black Rock, Vanguard, and the World Economic Forum. It’s no wonder we are all slowly going insane and masking it under the normalization of ADHD, depression, anxiety, and information on narcissistic pathology that consumes factions of the world wide web, which is readily accessible to anyone with a device.

All this to say, your life is a lotto. For some, it’s a gas station scratcher ticket worth a few hundred dollars. For others, it’s owning the Bellagio, being a sultan, or coming from a pedigree bloodline. My bloodline ensured I’d have just enough trauma paired with just enough neglect that I landed on the low end of mediocre.

Yet, I’m tasked with “living my best life.” Dare I say, “A great life.”
What the fuck does that even mean?
I’d venture to guess most people would answer in one of two ways:
1. The experiences we have this lifetime/Relationships. 
2. Being rich and doing the shit you want to do.

But, I’m part of the educated “slave” class, so the real answer is, “Be of service.”

Once you realize the “house always wins,” the lotto that is your life comes down to the game you are playing. Are you a “slots” person? Are you a “craps table” person? Are you a “poker” person? Or do you just dabble with “Keno”? Regardless, you are playing a game. Some people opt out by succumbing to drug addiction. Some choose violence. Some of us can only play the hand we're dealt. Some of us become dealers.

I’ve had to reconcile the fact I’m born a white woman in America to a middle-class family, and that my chosen vocation is ironic at best. Moreso, if my life were a screenplay, it would be a satire where the “main character” is a relationship coach who has never been married, had kids, or had a stable relationship in two decades of dating. All this to say, fate is a cruel mistress.

Further, there is a fine line between acquiescing to the reality we stand in and accepting the trajectory of our path.

I’m 44 now. I still feel the angst I did when I was a teenager, but the rebellion that once defined my behaviors has just turned into a whimper of desire for something better. When I coach people, I do my best to help them face reality; not as they would have it be, but for what it is. Sometimes it’s total crap, unfair, unjust, and disgusting. Other times, it fuels envy, jealousy, comparison, and enmity. Many people cope with reality by “manifesting” the life they want, which can also mean blaming the planets for outcomes, moods, and relationship dynamics. Or we just embrace our lot in life. We just go, “Okay, I’m an insurance salesperson in Tulsa, Oklahoma with 1.5 kids and a wife who is bored of me,” or whatever other template you want to apply. We are a copy of a copy of a copy, to the degree it’s predicable.

I wrote this article in honor of reality. It’s not special. Everything you are feeling, thinking, or doing, everyone has already done before or at least strong comparisons can be made. So, then what? Well, don’t get fat. Don’t be lazy. Don’t be entitled. Do be responsible for your tiny corner of the world and get good with being forgotten in 100 years. At best, you will make a difference. At worst, you won’t. The whole point of this exercise of incarnation is to learn to love; face reality head-on and love your fate--Amore Fati.