Unpopular ...

In graduate school - as during most of my life - I had the temerity to voice an extremely unpopular opinion during a class on addiction. The professor posited the question, "What is addiction?", and I dared voice my belief that there is a facet of choice involved each time we - individuals with the power of free will - engage in a behavior. Whether it be over-eating, over-spending, drinking, gambling, insert-vice-of-choice-here, every single time we do it, we do it because we choose to do it.

We have become victims of everything. Advertisements lure us into a consumer-driven society, forcing us to work more so we may spend more. Smoking and drinking apparently are social ills that have no known cause, no known remedy - they creep in without warning, and take hold of our lives, allowing us no choice but to visit the local watering holes or frequent the corner liquor stores, stocking our shelves for the inevitable binge that will come upon us. The price of a pack of cigarettes is so exorbitant that some of us need public assistance to deal with our "illness".

My treatise on self-inflicted ills could rage on endlessly. But it would be as pointless as many of the ways society has brilliantly devised to "cope" with its ailments. What the real point is, is, if one were to glance at a timeline of human history, one would quickly notice that many of the people alive today have lived in a very privileged, relatively easy time span in human history. And yet we bemoan our trials as overwhelming, unique, and insurmountable. No.

Living in an impoverished state, wherein military factions control the food supply and we must watch as our children slowly fade before our eyes is insurmountable. Victims of horrible disasters - natural and otherwise - live with unique and overwhelming situations. Having too much money, or choosing to spend what you do have on things like alcohol, drugs, or whatever feeds your addiction is not unique. It is an old story, as old as human history, and at its roots has always been a single cause - ego centrism, the belief that the world is all about you, and only you suffer, and everyone should feel sorry for you.

Today, I began to get overwhelmed at all I need to do and all that is not "right" with my life. My refrigerator broke down following a big grocery shopping. All that food is lost, and the expense is overwhelming right now. But we still have food to eat thanks to the dry goods, and somehow the bill for a new fridge will get paid. It is no reason to fall apart. It is time to give thanks for all that is right - the proximity of stores to refill our stock, the abundance of wholesome foods with which to grow my children, the blessings of electricity to even possess a refrigerator in our home ... the fact that we even have a home to call our own.

I have changed a great deal since the day I raised my hand in that class to give my view of addiction. I still hold that unpopular view. Let's face it, many people make their living off the victimization of a large portion of society. I, however, could never go back to working with that population - my methods of self-help, self-actualization, self-anything go against the grain of current theology. As I get older, I no longer fight my other-way of thinking. It used to embarass me to hold other opinions, see other ways of problem-solving, or just be unable to understand the lack of ... common sense displayed by others. My daily mantra is no longer, Try to fit in, but rather, Be in the world, not of the world, a therapeutic prescription devoid of humanism, with deep roots. Try it sometime. And then go read Nie Nie today, and watch her video. It will certainly cure you if you too are suffering from the Woe is Me today.