Hey internet fam,
It’s Sam again…Sunday morning, espresso in hand, blue light glasses on just to make myself feel more CrEaTiVe…taking strolls up and down my driveway finding words to match my thoughts, to match my emotions. I’m bumping a YouTube playlist of those “(slowed + reverb)” songs with the lo-fi cartoons in the back…if ya know, ya know.
2020…what a shit show.
I spent so much time alone this year inside my own head that I feel like I know myself too well. I never knew that self-reflection can be completely overdone. I never knew how heavy the past can feel when the future holds so many things out of your control, things full of uncertainty. I never knew my own thoughts could simultaneously make or break me.
“Thoughts become words,
words become actions,
actions become a lifestyle.”
I love this quote. This is a quote that I try and live by and this year I learned that this quote is a double-edged sword, maybe my worst enemy at times.
Let me explain…
When I was younger, I was a bit of a “delusional optimist”. I consistently struggled to look at the reality of a situation because I always felt my vision or desire was so much greater and clearer in my mind.
For example, when I was 12, I thought my first YouTube video was going to get thousands of hits overnight and when I checked the next morning, it had about 20…shocker, I know. Unrealistic expectations meet harsh reality, and you have yourself an angsty angry 11-year-old Sam…nobody wants to deal with that kid, lol.
When I was 10, I watched an episode of the Jabbawokeez on America’s Best Dance Crew…felt inspired, ordered one of their ghost-looking masks online and spent the next week in my garage thinking I was the second coming of Chris Brown. After a week, I truly believed it was time to hit the big stage so I asked my mom if she could drive me down to LA to get an audition for America’s Got Talent. This is a real story, I swear. She politely told me “it might be a little early for that, Sam”… and proceeded to tell me to go work on my times tables. Again, angry angsty Sam, smacked with another case of reality.
The reality was that…well, I hated reality, especially when it didn’t live up to my expectations. I loved to live in la-la land, still do. I wanted to sprint before I could walk and walk before, I could crawl. This isn’t to say I didn’t work for what I desired, but often times I only saw straight to the finish line, always forgetting the steps in between. The reason I bring this anecdote up is because I feel as though this is still how my brain works, today.
I talk openly about how much to love to “create”, although there are things that I subconsciously create along the road that I choose to push aside until they become my reality.
Here’s a few things that I love to “create”…
- unrealistic expectations for what should happen when my words become actions
- preconceived thoughts of what the future holds for me based off of what I believe I deserve
- ideas of what people might think of me after I put myself out in the world…close friends, new friends, family…everyone.
I realize I’m not alone in this and I’m not the first person to subconsciously create these thoughts. Although, I didn’t realize that these thoughts could actually drive me into a place where I’m incapable of doing anything, completely crippled by my own mental state. I call this self-destruction, a state of mind where my anxious thoughts override my present being, leaving me feeling isolated and powerless.
Let me paint the picture for you.
You’re in your car on a long drive and bam… that one song comes on and you’re saying to yourself…”oh fuck, here we go.” Thoughts are flying around your head and you just lose control of the moment. You try to play tough guy or tough gal and put on your sunglasses on to cover up, but the water works are already flowing at this point. A singular moment in time triggers hundreds of tiny moments and anxious thoughts bottled up inside your head ultimately leading you to a state of complete vulnerability. You feel like a shell of yourself.
To me, that is what I call the cycle of self-destruction.
To be honest, I “self-destructed” a lot this year…especially towards the end of the year. This is by no means a cry for help or a blog about how to deal with anxiety and all that jazz.
This is just my truth.
I created this blog to talk about topics that we don’t want to talk about, topics that can hopefully break barriers and add some sort of insight from my personal experiences.
In 2020, I set expectations, for almost everything. As the world continued to shut on and off, I craved quick bites of certainty and affirmation to reassure myself that everything was the way it was supposed to be. Am I on the right track? Am I in the right place right now? I could never just “be”. It was always, “what should I be doing right now?”. As things became more and more out of our control, I asked myself that question endlessly, using it as a vehicle to drive me farther away from the present moment, to drive me into the cycle of self-destruction.
In 2021, I’m setting zero expectations, for everything. As the world will continue to shut on and off, I hope I can too, always remain present with the time. I’m on the right path…and so are you. We’re right where we are supposed to be, whether you believe it or not, it’s our reality. It’s so easy to become distracted with what final picture should look like that we lose ourselves in where we are right now.
I mean, that’s really all we have…ourselves, right now.
So, if you made it this far…this is a reminder to take care of yourself and be easy on your mind. We’re all we got.
With love,
Sam Snowden
words by sam. 