Category: Words To Live By

I often find myself thinking that if I just try a little harder I’ll develop closer friendships, finally get healthier, have a better relationship with my partner, and so on, in just about every area of my life. I’ve been this way ever since I swam a 50-yard freestyle race in a sectionals swim meet in New York State around the age of 12.

For those who don’t know how large swim competitions go, you perform in qualifying heats, to hopefully make it to the final race where the top 8 swimmers from those heats compete against each other for the gold, silver, and bronze. I was raised to be a swimmer and was pretty darn good as a kid, especially in freestyle and backstroke. My naturally tall height and skinny frame always helped me to streamline in the water quite well, which is the very thing that led me to make it to this sectionals swim meet that day. My hope back then was to finish in the top three, as then I could go on to states, then maybe the junior Olympics after that, and ultimately the Olympics. I truly had dreams of becoming like Mark Spitz who was the first multiple Olympic gold champion for swimming in our country. So, when I passed all those qualifying heats in the 50-yard freestyle that day, beating out some 50 to 60 people, enough to land myself in lane 8 for the final race, I was stoked. As the gun went off for the final race, I pounded the water, as fast as I could and when I finished, I realized I had come in last. I was pretty down about it and what I really needed then was to be surrounded with unconditional love. What I got instead as I emerged from the water, tears in my eyes from defeat, was a mother with a towel in hand telling me I didn’t kick hard enough and could have done better. There was no mention of how proud she was that I had even made it that far. And from that moment forward in my life, it became a pattern of always believing if I just try a little harder, I’ll eventually “make it” and achieve what I want. And you know what? The only thing this has ever achieved is depression and frustration again and again. That’s why I’m working hard now to tell myself something different.

I AM GOOD ENOUGH JUST AS I AM!

Yes, Mom, I’m talking to you and yes, I’m also talking to everyone else as well who have ever told me that if I just tried harder, my life will get better somehow. Living like this has been exhausting. It’s led to the loss of many friendships over the years because I’ve often tried TOO HARD. It’s also led to making myself sicker, as I’ve pushed myself too hard to get well. And it’s even led to dissatisfaction with partnerships, due to a lack of acceptance of where either I was in my spiritual growth or my partner.

It’s time to change this. It’s time to really start accepting that it’s ok to just be me. That I don’t have to improve something about myself to make it. That ultimately, God loves me for me, and always has, just as I am, even when I placed 8^th in that race at 12 years old! In fact, I’m quite sure that God was cheering me on that day and proud of me even making it that far. And if God can be proud of me for me just being me, just as I am, then so should I.

It’s time to stop blaming myself for not trying hard enough, because I am trying hard enough, always have been, and I don’t need to try any harder. It’s time to just accept myself as I am and trust that God is ok with that and will put those things in my life who are ok with that too, who are ok with me just being me, because that is good enough! Doing this might just finally give me the peace I’ve been searching for my entire life, the peace I’ve consistently lost, all because I was told once that I didn’t kick hard enough.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I really miss those days of old. Call it becoming old fashioned, call it being stuck in the past, call it a result of growing old, or call it whatever you want. All I know is that as I continue to navigate these difficult COVID-19 times, I find myself fondly reminiscing of all the things that once were the norm in my younger years, that are now becoming something of the past, or already have become just that, long before this pandemic even came about.

Things like when there were no phones or tablets or video consoles to constantly glance down at when eating our meals together, where instead our only choice was to be social with each other and connect much deeper from places like our heart.

Things like when one game after another was played outside until the sun finally set, where some of which never even had an official name until we gave it one. Games where we kicked a can, and ran and hid, or ones where we sought to win over some type of flag. Games that definitely brought us much closer together, as we interacted in person with each other, rather than through headsets on video consoles for hours on end.

Things like when there were regular block parties or progressive dinners at each other’s homes, where we’d get to know our neighbors so much better, instead of living on streets where we hardly know anyone, other than through an occasional wave or hello from a distance.

Things like when texting wasn’t a thing, when people totally desired to pick up the phone to hear a friendly and caring voice on the other end, where tears got shared on one side or both, instead of simply sending heart, sad face, or countless other emojis that are totally void of feeling any real connection and emotion.

Things like when our self-esteem was something we worked on within ourselves and came from a personal achievement that had nothing to do with someone else’s approval, instead of basing it upon social media, where our self-esteem comes from the number of likes we get to some posting or how many friends we achieve in connecting to an online profile.

Things like when people relied more on feeling better by helping others and doing community service, instead of relying upon drugs and medications to make it happen, like so many are starting to do these days.

Things like when happy birthday greetings were done more through personalized cards, special phone calls, and surprise visits, rather than sending a few words through a quick text message or social media posting.

Things like when people used to go on hot summer nights to places like drive-ins, roller skating rinks, and bowling alleys to interact with each other, rather than sitting at home and getting drunk and high on their front porches.

Things like when people really cared about showing their love and kindness to each other, when the desire to be more personal was a typical thing, when people liked giving warm hugs and firm handshakes, even to strangers, rather than avoiding all tokens of closeness more than not.

So yes, I find myself really missing those days of old, especially as of late, and often wonder now if this pandemic will permanently change our landscape to one where we never return to times of personal closeness with others being the norm. Closeness that emanates from the heart and soul through interpersonal connection, one that Christ himself demonstrated time and time again, even when sickness was all around him.

To truly heal our world and all this sickness within it, maybe what it needs a lot more of right now is connection, rather than disconnection, closeness rather than distance, and time spent together, rather than apart. Three things I remember quite fondly being present a lot more so in our past than our present, leaving me with far too many feelings of really missing those days of old…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

You would think that after experiencing a pristine weather day and two wonderful meals I was treated to on my 48^th birthday by two wonderful people, that I’d be driving home at the end of it feeling quite happy and joyful, yet I wasn’t. Rather, I was feeling three unwanted character flaws that have plagued my entire life.

What are those three things?

Loneliness, neediness, and high maintenance.

As a kid, I always felt lonely and that I didn’t matter. My needs were often overlooked due to living in an alcoholic home with two mentally and emotionally imbalanced parents. Alcohol and drugs became my only solution to deal with it for my late teenage and early adult years until they got out of control and forced me to stop them both. Once I did, thus began an arduous two and a half decades of constantly feeling a level of loneliness that’s led to so much neediness and high maintenance-based behaviors with anyone who have grown close to me.

After spending my childhood with such loneliness and no real deep connections to speak of, I’d cling to anyone who liked me and became a friend or partner to me, always seeking and wanting signs of love and attention from them, two things I never got much of as a kid. It was almost as if I kept trying to make up for what I didn’t get back then. This persistent seeking of love and attention unfortunately showed up as neediness. And the more I became needy, the more I became high maintenance as well.

Over the past 25 years, I’ve tried to change that by removing these unwanted character flaws through one therapist after another, through diligent work in 12 Step recovery programs, through work in The Mankind Project (MKP), through countless self-help and spiritual empowerment books, through prayer and meditation, through loving myself unconditionally, and well, through a vast number of other things too. Yet, those flaws have remained, except for a few key moments in my life, the biggest being after I spent ten days on a silent retreat. For about six months after that retreat, I felt embraced by something so amazing that those negative traits seemed to have disappeared. Unfortunately, they came back when that feeling of being embraced so deeply, suddenly wore off one day, landing me right back into that perpetual state of loneliness, neediness, and high maintenance.

I tried to do that retreat again almost a year later in the hopes to regain that feeling of being embraced, but wasn’t successful. I tried plenty of other things as well in the years that have passed since then right up to the present, yet have continued to remain unsuccessful. So, at the tail end of my birthday, this is what I was feeling and it was totally brought on by the sadness I felt over a close friend not calling or texting me on my birthday. For as much as that shouldn’t have affected me so greatly, it did.

This has indeed become the most frustrating part of my life. Feeling lonely, needy, and high maintenance all the time hasn’t made for much of a positive space for others to stick around in my life. That’s why I’ve begged God to help me feel more of God’s presence, and have tried more than you could ever imagine or suggest might help to make this happen, even going so far as meditating for hours a day at one point until I passed out from holding my breath too long, which ended only in me bruising my skull!!!

While I’ve had some pretty incredible friendships and relationships in my life who have stuck by my side even with me carrying these unwanted flaws, and while I’ve also seen and done so many amazing things in this world too, none have ever been able to remove my feeling of loneliness and because of it, it’s left me in this constant state of neediness and high maintenance.

For as many paths as I’ve gone down to rectify this, for as hard of work I’ve placed in my life to be free of these defects of character, and for as much money as I’ve spent on each of the ways people have suggested may help, I continue to carry the burden from each of them.

The positive news is that I don’t buy into there being some person, place, or thing in this world anymore that will ever fully be able to take these character flaws away for good. Even the best sex in a new love relationship will only ever temporarily abate it because I’ve experienced even that.

In the end, I believe the only way I’ll ever become free from loneliness, neediness, and high maintenance, is to feel the true unconditional love of God within me, which for the life of me, I continue to pray for every, single, day…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson