If change is impossible, just take the edge off
Channel: Quest for a Meaningful Life
Date: 2021-04-11

"Take the edge off."
I like this expression.
This idea that you're just going to reduce the worst of something.
You're not going to fix it.
You're not going to make the bad thing go away.
But just- maybe not even significantly reduce it, but just around the edges of it, just take a little bit of the sting away from something bad.
And I think this can be a useful thing to think about when we have that feeling of being stuck.
The feeling that we can't change.
And this is a big part of what started me making this channel and talking about things like this: this feeling that I'm stuck in my life.
I can't change my life.
I'm somewhere- I'm not doing what I want to do.
I'm not being genuinely myself.
I'm not living the life that I can.
And having this feeling that I have a certain number of years left of life to do what I can with this life and make something good out of it, whatever it means, and I want to start doing that.
And I know there's others out there who feel the same way.
And yet this feeling of not being able to change, the feeling that the weight of the present situation is too much, that I simply cannot move, "move the needle", as one expression goes, or move the giant weight: imagining like our situation is like a giant stone that we cannot imagine rolling out of the way.
It simply will not budge, no matter how much we get positive talk about "Just try your best", "Just try your best and work hard every day, be positive, make small changes, and you'll get there."
But if we see our problems, our limitations as a giant boulder in our doorway, then it doesn't matter how much we're told to think positive and do a little bit every day.
We're not going to push that boulder out of the way.
And we can eventually just become sick of positive talk.
I mean, that's a whole other topic: this sense of just becoming sick of positivity.
Because you're just told to try harder, and nothing's working.
So instead of thinking about solving your problems, trying to make bad things go away, transformation: all that stuff is possible, I believe.
Possible.
But if you don't want to go there, maybe you don't think it's possible.
Maybe it isn't.
What do I know?
I don't know your situation.
Maybe your problems are not solvable.
I would doubt that, but I don't know.
And so: this idea of taking the edge off.
Imagine your life sucks and it will always suck, if you're in that kind of dark mindset.
Life will always suck, and there's nothing you can do about it, so don't even bother thinking positive and trying to have a great transformation.
Instead, just take the edge off.
Do something that just reduces some of the sting, just taking a little bit off the edge.
Now, I guess an easy way to interpret this would be just go numbing yourself with drugs and addictions.
And so that would certainly be one approach, but then of course leads to further misery down the road if it's taken too far.
But just any kind of small adjustment.
Any slight change.
You can make a small change without needing to believe that this is the beginning of a great transformation to a happy life.
You don't need to believe that in order to make a small change and say OK, you are going to maybe wake up a little earlier.
Maybe go for a little walk in the sunshine.
Maybe change one of the items of food that you eat.
Adjust the frequency of one of your addictions.
Change some very small thing about how you live.
You don't need to believe this whole grand sunny positive vision of how this is the first step towards transformation, even though I believe that it can be, but you don't have to believe that.
You can make this little change simply for its own sake, of simply adjusting the edge of misery.
Simply tuning down that misery just one step, by making that one tiny change, and let it speak for itself.
Let it be there for itself.
It doesn't need to be the beginning of a grand change.
But if it's a choice between totally giving up - you can totally give up, accept misery.
But you can totally give up and accept your life will be miserable, and still make that slight change.
And so this is what I would say for those who feel stuck in misery.
Even if you can't get all the way out, you can take the edge off.
And who knows where that one step might lead?
It might lead to a bigger transformation.
But even if not, you're still taking a little bit of the sting out of the misery, and taking your life one step towards, a little bit, maybe one ray of sunshine.

#taketheedgeoff #changeisimpossible #slightchange