You Cannot Force Others To Help Themselves

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The saying ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink‘ is a proverb that many of us are familiar with. It means that you can give someone an opportunity but you cannot force them to take it. Many of us are stuck in the “I cannot give up on (insert name here) because they need me, I can help them.” However, the reality is many times far from this picturesque world where we somehow believe that with enough energy and time we can change people. The only time someone will change is if they want to change. If they physically, mentally, and emotionally make the decision to say fuck it, I want to change. I want to do better. I want to be better.

You cannot reason with someone who has everything at their disposal and yet choose to only focus on the negative and they are still blaming their parent’s generational curses for the reason why they cannot climb out of bed in the morning.

We all feel it. What is the ‘it’? The existential dread of being alive in a time where nothing is getting better. The world is still at war with each other. Middle of a global pandemic. Financial crises loom over us on a daily basis. We hate our jobs, we barely have active constructive social lives, it mainly consists of getting pitch black drunk to pretend and escape our realities. We woke up mid Covid19 realising that we have no real purpose in our lives and that nothing really matters. THAT ‘it’. But we fight, we might make cringe comments about dying sometimes and how life is fucked up, but we fight. We do not give up.

There are people that are going about living a 9to5 life, working a night shift, and still doing online work for additional sources of income and the new craze of NFT’s and Crypto’s to ensure they are not left behind. We strive to keep going. Where are we going? Fuck knows. But we still pushing and moving forward.

You can be 18, 28, 58, we are all confused as to what the meaning of being a skeleton covered with meat whirling around a fireball in space really means. BUT we keep going.

We all feel depressed. We all feel it, but we have to keep continuing. We live in a society where even though nothing really matters anymore, we still have at our disposal an infinite number of tools to assist us in our daily life and with our mental health. It all means nothing though if you as an individual do not want to change and take the opportunities you are given.

We can keep blaming our parents for things, our parents were racist, our parents were mean, our parents didn’t even say “I Love you”, our parents did this and said that… but seriously? Who is in control of your life right now? You are. What don’t you understand? You cannot keep blaming mommy and daddy but you are a 38-year-old guy with a house bond a wife and two kids. You cannot keep blaming your parents because you battle to use your voice and communicate your feelings. You just can’t.

Speak to a psychologist, speak to a therapist, go for counselling, go to a support group, don’t want to do that? Go online and read articles, and lectures, do a free course to help yourself to understand your emotions and feelings, create a gratitude diary, do one of the many self-help booked fueled things that our society has been worshipping this last decade, but DO something. Don’t just sleep day in and day out. Still don’t want to do any of what was mentioned? Speak to your religious leaders, your friends, or become a volunteer at an animal shelter or old age home. Yes, you will still be miserable but for those few hours a week, you will be miserable while bringing someone joy at least.

Stop fixating on everything that is wrong with your life if you don’t give two cents worth of energy to try and fix it. Do you hate how you look? Go to the gym, change your diet and lifestyle, speak to people to build up your self-confidence, learn to embrace every single cm of yourself. The good and the bad, cause you are fucking perfect but fail to see this.

Excuses, Excuses and more fucking excuses. NOTHING will change if you do not allow it to change if you do not take a chance and try something new. I am sure someone will be sitting there reading this thinking, “wow he doesn’t have a clue”. Well, clinically depressed individual, with failed suicide attempts and self-injury scars to prove you wrong. Life is still shitty, but I’ve learned my good from my bad. I’ve learned my triggers. I still break down and get very very bad. However, I will always fight back with everything I have to be okay again. Not going for great, or amazing, just okay. Okay is good. Okay is safe. Okay is manageable.

Not blaming a missing father figure in my life anymore. Not blaming the hate and abuse I have endured, not blaming failed relationships and wrong decisions I have made. Taking every day as it comes and pushing forward.

Breaking the generational curses of those before me, Breaking the chains of how we are perceived to behave. I am not taking responsibility for anyone else anymore except for myself. I am not taking responsibility anymore. If someone refuses your help, allow them to refuse it. They choose to refuse your help. You did nothing wrong. If that person crashes and burns. They chose to crash and burn. It is not your fault. You did nothing wrong.

Mental health is tough, it really is. It is a constant back and forth of where you are in your life. Different people influence how you feel and the idea of chaos in your life can be daunting. We need to, however, be willing to make changes and also embrace changes not just make them. If you don’t want to speak to someone and if you don’t want to listen to people who care about you that want to help, then how can you ever get better?

People want to blame others, it is a scapegoat that is so easy. I am angry because you did xxx. I am sad because you did xxx. I am upset because on Facebook someone shared a post about xxx. …But what did you do to change the narrative? What did you say to change the outcome? We cannot keep going in circles when the straight path has a million obstacles. Take the risks. Take the chances. Fight back with every single part of your soul. Take the opportunities. Speak out. Be open. Stop lying to yourself.

If you are struggling and going through a rough time, know this. The people that love you are not responsible for “fixing” you. They are responsible to give you guidance, support, and love. If you do not take that and use it to help yourself, then you cannot blame them. You are the only one that matters in this scenario. You need to help yourself.

And for those trying day in and day out to help someone you care about. You can put your best foot forward with all the experience in the world, but if they do not want your help, if they actively work against every single thing you suggest or say, you need to protect yourself. Protect your own well-being because you matter, you are important too.

Therefore, YOU. MUST. LET. THEM. GO.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. You can however make sure you remain hydrated so that you can continue to live another day.

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