To find balance, or to find purpose?

Lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping; trouble eating, trouble breathing.

All my life I’ve had a need to feel “full”, or “complete”. I’ve always searched and tried different things that could possibly give me my supposed needed fulfillment.. something that could put to rest this deep feeling of sore discontentment with life.

My life has consisted of nothing less than extreme phases of obsessions; obsessions with material objects, with hobbies, with goals. With things that I think could bring me some feeling of enjoyment. I don’t do them because I actually enjoy them, but rather, because I feel like I could enjoy them.

I could never be happy with my current state; my current accomplishments, possessions, passions, etc. I always wanted more.

Here’s why.

I have always been very reclusive. During some phases, I would retract myself from everyone and everything altogether. I would write, or sing, or watch movies. But never read. I was scared of the outside world. Scared of other people’s ideas. Scared of other people. It’s simply all too overwhelming for me. I would think,

“If I just become really good at something, I can stick at it for the rest of my life and never have to leave my comfort zone. These people can’t hurt me. I can make a lot of money once I become the best at it and then move away; move to another country or buy a house in the country. I can forget about this place, these people. I won’t have to deal with them.”

My “passions” (obsessions) became my exit strategy, my wall to lean on.

And now here I am, stuck in a perpetual state of retrospective paralysis. In my safe zone. I have never had to face my fears; the only failures I’ve ever known were those I’ve had to overcome in my quests to literally becoming the best at something. One thing (and I even eventually accomplished that in one of my endeavors; but not at anything worth noting). I wanted to dominate something; make it mine so that it can make me safe and secure.

I am scared to death of people; of rejection; of not being the best at something; effectively crippling myself to new things.

Everyday I’m lost in the matrix. Searching and searching for something to rid me of myself and my masochistic mind. Drugs didn’t work. Over the years, my mind has become numb to the euphoric feeling I used to have when I became freakishly obsessed with something to the point that I couldn’t sleep because of it. Now I can’t sleep because I can’t find that…that rush. That feeling of….contentment? Happiness? It’s all gone now.

Once I get off work, I’m probably going home to watch a movie and go to bed. Movies and youtube are the only things that can give me any satisfaction anymore. They’re immediately enjoyable. They’re my addiction. They get me out of my mind and my sad state. They help me forget about myself simply by plugging in. Not that this has much to do with anything I’ve written so far, but I thought I would share.

My inner thirst for balance has lost its sanity; my addiction to passion has lost its purpose. I want to regain my purpose.