MOUNTING EGOIC PRESSURE
For all the days and months I've spent sorting out my psychological landscape, all the progress I could’ve made, I find myself regressed to the point that I feel worse off than before that fateful moment in the fall of 2012. The tension between the pull toward what I am versus what I’m supposed to be is at an all-time high and frustration has spread like a wildfire in my mind.
After 38 years of asking why am I here, I expect I should already know. After all my longing for a loving heart, I expect I should have one. After all my crying out to my Father about where he's gone, I expect him to be here. After all my hard work at my current job, I expect more to show for it. After all the support my wife has given me throughout the years, I expect I should be able to support her more. And on, and on, and on it goes......
When have I ever allowed myself to be who I am and my circumstances to be what they are without these corrosive expectations chipping away at my joy and poisoning my heart? As much as God is with me wherever I go and whatever I do, when I succumb to the allure of measuring up to my mind's idea of who I should be, I cannot see or receive him. I’m adrift in an ocean without end, floundering under the weight of accountabilities not even God, in all his perfection, places on me. This ocean is a self-made Hell, a sinking prison that suffocates all hope and drowns any light I might possess. I understand this conceptually, but I just can’t shake it. The self-hate is too damn strong, and it’s winning…