What to do when you can’t have what you want. The bittersweet solace of stoicism.

I basically want two things and it’s become painfully clear I can’t have those two things.

This has several consequences. I don’t feel like I am truly myself without those two things. So when you meet me I am merely an amputated version of me. I could try and delude myself into thinking that I can get those things, that I just need to work towards these things for years and that then I will get them. That’s not the truth, I would just feel hungry every day, do all kinds of crazy things, spend a lot of energy, all in the hope that I will eventually strike gold. Twice.

So what can I do?

Even though my light has gone out inside, I can still:

• work on my body and value my physical health
• learn a couple things that can be of value. Nothing major, but little things that come with some small advantages
• practice detachment. Which you could say is practicing to be dead before your body is pronounced clinically death
• distract myself with little pleasures, like reading, movies, games…
• be kind to people
• support people who mean well and are still going strong
• stay out of trouble
• take in the wisdom of certain accomplished individuals
• try to be grateful for the things I do have (a very hard exercise for me)
• live a quiet life, which is better than keep smashing my head into the same walls
• create things that at least a few people will derive some value from
• avoid pretending
• most importantly, not become the angry, bitter, party pooper most males become when they can’t have what they want (see most Trump fans as examples)
• Accept that I can’t control everything and that I am here  to have an experience that is largely out of my own control. We have a part to play and then we can go.

‘All I have to do is be the wave that I am and sink back into the ocean’