I wonder

Life has been far from pleasant of late. This may be difficult to comprehend, with what may seem like good things going on all about me, but it is truth. I won't bore you with the details, the time for that has long past and I would find no solace in spewing words on here. But it makes me wonder. Why do we put up with it all? Why do we continue to fight, when there really is no fight to begin with? It's all just struggling for air against the undertow, isn't it? Personal agency. I never considered it much because I never had much of it. But I wonder, even if I had it, would I be any different? What if I could decide the path my life took, could turn around and be different.

And with that, I realize that I can. I can say fuck it all and stop doing what I'm doing if I want. It may not be a good idea, but I can. I would rather sit here and suffer than sit there and suffer under the heel of another, but the greater good comes from suffering under another, or at least so it seems. The more important question, then, is what I can do when there seems to be no alternative. I suffer under my own heel, and I have nowhere to flee, as I restrain myself. I do things I hate, become someone I never wish to be, or perhaps find myself hating what I once was as I drift back into the same old routines. "Who I am hates who I've been", in a sense. Where can I enact my agency there? And this leaves me unstable, unsure if I ever had agency in the first place, or if it was all illusion covering this slavery to self.

If I hate who I am, was, and what I am becoming, then I must do something to change this. But even then, does that mean I need to ignore it? Only a fool would think it proper to cast off entirely who they once were. A sinner may become a saint, but only by embracing and accepting their sins. One should have no regrets in life, even if they hate what they have done. This can be done, though it is very much not the easiest of paths to walk. It is a fool's errand to shun one's own life in such a way, to cut themselves off from who they once were and how that has shaped them. It is worse to embrace that which you hate, and continue it, as if you have no control over your actions. Instead, we must look forward, with hope in heart and mind that we can overcome what we once were. Because the feel shame or guilt isn't to regret who we were. To accept what we have done is not to excuse ourselves of the wrong, nor is it to cast guilt on ourselves. It is to know who we are and what we have done, so that we can know if not what to do, at least what not to do.