Am I getting used to the grim reality?

TL;DR

·       To understand your mental resilience, please seek professional and qualified support and advice

·       Just because I am mentally healthy it does NOT EQUATE to being happy

·       Time is our most expensive and finite resource, and it is NOT guaranteed

·       Those jokes are funny but they’re also grim, because that fictional idea, is seemingly becoming a reality

·       It is a grim reality, but who said we can’t have hope and experience joy

I don’t know about yourself, but my sense of humour and general outlook on life is not as positive as older adults would like it to be. But I am ok with that. For me it feels like I am being realistic and setting the bar low enough that when something decent happens, I feel that extra pocket of joy. And when the universe proves me correct, I’m not surprised, just disappointed. But am I getting used to the grim reality, or is there something wrong?

The face (and hair) of someone who has totally accepted the grim reality

Just Live, Laugh, Loving Life. I guess

Why might there be something wrong?

Mental health is an umbrella term, that is used normally in the negative sense but should be appreciated for it’s neutral use for both positive and negative. Everyone has their own limits when it comes to mental health, so where the same event could happen to 2 people, they will both take away a different perspective from it.

The reason I have mentioned mental health is because, people get scared when they hear about my view on existence. I am not trying to convince anyone to think like me, but I just want people to appreciate we can all live a reasonable existence and take a different perspective from it. Whether or not that viewpoint is coming from a place of poor mental health or not, is dependant on your mental resilience.

To understand your mental resilience, please seek professional, qualified support and advice. I am not here to do that. I have invested in it myself, and I can always recommend that, but please do not take anything from this post as mental health advice. It’s just my opinion, based on thoughts I have had.

Why I don’t think there is anything wrong?

And I only mean this in the aspect of how I view existence (lol). But I am very satisfied with the life I am living and leading. I am working on things that excite me and interest me. And currently if something unfortunate happened, I would spend my final moments being happy and proud of how I have used my time thus far. Obviously, I will be sad that it’s cut short and I didn’t get to see what happened after, but that’s just the reality. But what I have done in the meantime, I am very happy with how it’s turning out and proud of myself.

There are no negative associated thoughts to my life, and that is something I heavily point out when I tell people about my views. Because I know they sound grim, compared to how society would want us to view adulting and existing in this timeline. But I always preface, I am at my healthiest mentally right now, but just because I am mentally healthy it does NOT EQUATE to being happy and joyful, about the life and existential situation that I am experiencing.

So back to it, am I getting used to the grim reality?

I’m sure you’re wondering what my viewpoint is on existence, especially with that huge disclaimer about mental health. Well:

My viewpoint is that “life is short, especially in comparison to how long the lifespan is of the sun, Earth, universe and some trees. We also live on a rock and literally everything is made up, especially our problems. As someone who does not have insane wealth or power, I have little to no influence on many things, including parts of my own life. And that’s ok, because I can only control what is truly within my control, which is my emotions, how I react and treat people and some other assets like money and time. Lastly, time is our most expensive and finite resource, and it is NOT guaranteed that we will see tomorrow. So, I try to live my life with the intention of making the most of what little time I actually have in this consciousness life, moment and body.”

I think this is a very realistic viewpoint on life, but when I occasionally mention it to people, there are a lot of concerned faces and questions about my mental health. And I don’t know if that’s because everyone else has convinced themselves, that the reality we are living in “is perfectly fine” or if they choose to ignore the issues. Either way, I feel like I was lied to about adulting. It’s one thing to pay bills, and deal with the mundaneness of being an adult, and it’s another thing to try to do that, with inflation, geopolitical instability, the reality that the planet is trying to get rid of us, and governments trying to reduce autonomy over what we do with our time (have children and increasing the age of retirement).

I am not blaming the older generations for their lack of ability to prepare us. Because quite frankly, the world wasn’t as bad for them, as it is for us younger generations. For all they knew, the reality they experienced, was what we were going to experience. But it’s not. However, where the younger generation, can normally be open-minded enough to appreciate that, the older generations tend to double down on the “You’re young, entitled and lazy” narratives about us. And thankfully instead of being petty, we are starting to just let it be. Because it turns out, when your existence is in a very turbulent time, you choose to spend that time making the most of it for yourself and what matters to you. I ain’t got time to clap back to someone who won’t stop to consider my reality, so let them shout. I’m going to be over here enjoying my hobbies, my friends and the simpler, little things in life.

How I know I am handling the grim reality?

I am joking about it, but the jokes are a reflection of my reality. Because “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry”, and ain’t nobody got time for that. The group chats start off complaining about the reality of adulting, with the jokes on how we survive it getting more and more extreme. But since reality has become a mirror of a dystopian fictional novel we read as teens, those jokes are funny but they’re also grim, because that fictional idea, is seemingly becoming a reality.

But after we laugh and experience a minor existential crisis, we get back to it. Because what else is there to do? Yes, many voices can make a difference, but at the end of the day “you have to play the game, to be in the chance to win”. So, we can put the world to rights in the chat, but we still have to play into the capitalism game. Move the piece on the board game of life. Because it’s a lot harder to support the change, when you’re fighting to survive the day.

And this is a grim reality that isn’t stemmed in poor mental health. It’s the constant disappointment experienced in reality, festering into a humour-filled coping mechanism, rather than choosing resentment. Because resenting what has happened, reduces how much you get to laugh and enjoy the little moments in each day. And those days are already numbered, we just don’t know how many, so why choose to let most of them be riddled with negativity?

It is a grim reality, but who said we can’t have hope and experience joy in all of that?