Helluva life

"My life was hell." Yup, there's always someone whose life was hell and they just have to tell you about it and not just once or twice. Let’s face it: we’ve all had personal hells of one sort or another. Possibly some of us live it daily. For the more fortunate, their hell is behind them. But there is a type who feels obliged to revisit their personal hell. It is almost as though they have become attached to their hell and must continue to relive it verbally. They haven't used the experience to gain insight, further develop themselves or to move on.

Now I don’t mind hearing it once, or even, I’ll admit, twice. I’m curious, I’m concerned and it helps me to know a person better to know what kind of baggage they’ve carried (or have worked to let go of) but I don’t need to hear about it repetitively. If such experiences become a conversational crutch, it says to me this person hasn’t moved on. Hasn’t learned anything from their experience. This person is getting some kind of emotional pay out in replaying their hell. Is it pity, victimization, how brave they were, how much they had to suffer, blaming? I wish these people would stop and reflect on exactly what that life lesson their hell imparted to them. How did it make them a better person? Or are they stuck? Stuck in the past and the drama of that past?

Let’s face it. Many of us have lived a hell that is dramatic, and drama isn’t that easy to come by daily unless you’re a doctor, an actor or maybe a police constable. So maybe we’re hooked on the drama of the moment or minutes of our personal hell which is why we don’t want to let it go. I tend to ask these Hell-on-earthers why they are telling me this. Sometimes it works as they reflect on why they continue to bathe in the waters of the past. It begs the question: why are they so comfortable there and not here in the moment? I too have fallen prey to repeating history. But I’ve found little satisfaction in it. The satisfaction I have found, though, is when I move on, when I make peace, when I feel free of the “ties that bind”. I hope you, reader, will keep that in mind too if you find yourself stuck in a past moment or dwelling on a bad incident without finding forgiveness or some other kind of resolution.