"Hard People = Hard Choices" - JR Everhart

The path of victory always runs through the town of suffering.  Growth is rarely compatible with comfort.  I get so twisted and frustrated with the challenging people in my life.  It sometimes turns me into a bull that gives everyone around me the horns.  I’m a firm believer that challenging people are great assets of growth.  But the journey mostly sucks.  Lol.  These people trigger all our dysfunctional reactions and make us think about what our true character is.  These people are the refiners-fire challenging us to align our walk with our talk.  It’s easy to stand and talk about how great a person you are until some jerk takes you for granted and treats you like your nobody, and eventually dismisses everything you're trying to do in life.  These people have no idea the mountains of suffering you’ve had to climb, or the high cliffs you’ve had to navigate to just become functional. Or how about all the loss that lays on the road behind you from all the hard lessons you’ve had to learn.  But at its core, this is testing your resilience and ability to love those that are hard to love. Newsflash!  We are hard to love at times, and Jesus still sets at our table of chaos and enjoys a conversation with us over a meal.  His love for us through all our anger, malice, frustration, and self-entitlement never ceases to amaze me. 

I struggle so hard this way.  I grew up as the 11th child of 12, and had to fight for everything in my life.  I was always dismissed and pushed to the side.  Made to feel like I was in my parents' way of happiness.  I’ve had to scratch and claw my way to where I am now, and nothing makes me want to clothesline a guy with a chainsaw more than being treated that way in my adult life.  But self-control is a fruit of the spirit…  Learning to walk the path of love and gentleness DOES NOT come natural to me.  I’m a big guy with a big personality.  But I’ve had to learn these lessons the hard way.  Again, nothing comes easy for me in my world.  I’m still scratching and clawing my way through this stuff. But after almost ten years in recovery, I think I’m starting to figure some of this out. 

What I’ve come to learn is that the people who trigger me most have a story as well.  They didn’t become the dismissive jerks they are overnight.  Most have stories just like mine - full of abuse and dysfunction.  Some grew up spoiled brats financially but had zero validation from their career-driven parents.  Once I start trying to see the world through their eyes, my reactions begin to change. It’s hard to learn to become an actor in life, instead of a reactor.  I’ve spent most of my life reacting to the world around me instead of walking out the principles of “live and let live”.  Or even learning to pick and choose the battles I’m fighting with people.  Not every hill is worth dying over.  When I learn to stop the trigger reactions, I start to mature emotionally.  People don’t jack me up as easily. I’m no expert at this, but the first step is knowledge and understanding.  It may take years to get these things operating in my life, but no matter how slow your progress forward in your journey, you're still miles ahead of everyone blind to their dysfunction and not trying.

 

So how does all this reflect into the pool of my compulsive behaviors?  Well first of all porn never says no.  It always offers validation and some sort of connection even if it is toxic.  I look at it like some of the food we eat.  Deep down we know it’s slowing killing us, but we still return to the trough like blind pigs being fattened up for the slaughter.  Porn’s no different; it promises paradise but delivers decay.  Yet some of us still return to the thought of desire regularly.  Nothing triggers me more to act out than being treated in the aforementioned manner.  I have this need to feel validated and connected, and when those things are threatened, my natural tendency is to move toward the porn trough.  For me, before recovery, that translated into physically connecting with the women I was swinging with regularly.  And if I’m being honest, when I use porn to this day, it makes me want to start texting those old connections whom I know wouldn’t say no to me sexually.  It’s a very slippery slope that I have to navigate with much fear and trembling.  So I write, or connect with healthy friends, and most of the time eat way too much food.  I don’t drink, gamble, do drugs of any kind, and can’t allow myself the toxic pleasure of casual sex, therefore I eat.  It’s my greatest struggle in my life these days.  It seems like it’s always something, and it can be exhausting.  So, my only chance at hope is through Christ, and connection with other brothers that understand the struggle. One foot in front of the other, one day at a time, and staying focused on my next right decision.  It’s my only hope for peace and satisfaction in life.