My Story, Story (Originally Posted 2011)
I’m a PhD student and have been in college for over 10 years. I’ve dated women and even had one marry me once and another agree to be engaged. But, no matter these moments, I never felt like I was offering the best of who I could be to these women.
I’ve always felt like my relationships were matters of luck, or faulty judgment on the part of the girl. It is no wonder that the marriage (she cheated on me) or the engagement (she was simply nuts) or any of the other short lived relationships in my life have never turned into something deep and fulfilling, passionate, and vitalizing.
Instead, in every relationship I would be filled with self-doubt and insecurity, just waiting for it to all end. Moreover, I tended to “take what I could get” rather than actively go out and meet women I was attracted to.
I’ve felt love before. And I’ve had plenty of dating experiences, but nothing has been as fulfilling as I imagine it can be. A couple of summers ago I dated a girl who was a local celebrity of sorts. I never imagined she would be as cool as she turned out to be. Beautiful, Smart, Chill, Popular, Fun, Exciting, Athletic…she seemed to be the complete package.
Then it all ended…
I was devastated, though not over the loss of her. But over the loss of yet another great, beautiful woman in my life. I felt myself getting older and losing some of the hopes and dreams I had for my relationship life.
My dreams begin to evaporate before my very eyes.
I fell into a depression, much deeper than I ever had felt before. I contemplated suicide and would lose sanity for brief moments. One night, I happened to see my recent ex with another man…in a fit of rage, I punched a wall and broke my hand.
And that’s when I knew something was fundamentally wrong with my life.
During this time I discovered Endgame. It was like reading my own thoughts, but thoughts that had been forgotten. You see, there was a time when I felt much more open to expressing myself with women, from supposed ‘nice guy’ gestures and comments to raw, cardinal sexuality.
Not by coincidence, during that time, I was literally ON FIRE with enthusiasm, passion, and purpose for my current occupation. I had connected so deeply, intimately, with my work and felt as though I was literally working to make the world a more beautiful place and people better human beings.
I was studying human communication theory, with particular emphasis on philosophical approaches towards understanding human potential. I was studying how the ‘knower and the known’ are inseparable, tacit dimensions of knowledge, social construction, attribution theories, the idea that ‘interpretation precedes experiences,’ existentialism, authenticity, etc…
During that time in my life, I felt I had truly stumbled upon something so revolutionary, so desperately needed in a time when people seemed to be living deeply ensconced in the seats of “getting” mindsets.
I was ready to shout the news from highest mountains and would regularly talk nonstop to anyone who would listen (and sometimes to people who had no desire to). It did not matter, I was DOING and CREATING. I had intrinsic sense of purpose from the sheer acts of doing and giving.
It was no wonder that during that time I meet some of the most attractive and smart women as effortlessly as breathing.
However, somewhere along the way, all this enthusiasm and connection was severed, or perhaps its simply disintegrated slowly under the pressure of time. The shiny toy had lost its appeal, becoming dull and uninspiring. How did this happen?
Well...
To paraphrase the words of Spiderman:
Of course, any story worth telling starts with a girl.
I had met a beautiful, smart, and wise one. We had a cerebral connection, a visceral connection, and she was sexy and sexual as hell!
But, along the way, it did not work out. She broke it off within three months. I was devastated, and the pain dug its claws deep into the very core of my passion and self-confidence.
For when that girl broke up with me I felt: “Well what good is all this human potential stuff if I cannot hold on to the girl I desire? What good am I if I can’t make this work for me?”
What followed was the slow death of my once ON FIRE desire in the work I was doing, in my purpose.
And there you have it.
Those who have read Endgame will recognize what happened here. Despite knowing better, I was so clearly motivated to see fulfillment from external sources, from a girl or a relationship, both whose very nature is transitive and fleeting.
I was making someone else responsible for my own happiness, expecting them to grant me freedom to be me. I was, in short, needy.
EndGame reawakened that part of me that had fallen asleep, that had been lost in that break up. I downloaded EndGame and immediately found some relief. But, it was, of course, not lasting. I continued to struggle to find my life’s purpose, to reorient it to enable more productive ways of gaining meaning in my life, instead of turning to others for validation, acceptance, or admiration.
So, I signed up for GetReal, just about the time that my broken hand had healed. What I experienced was nothing short of remarkable in its simplicity yet so profound in its influence on every part of my life. In the days ahead, I will share with you some of the changes, challenges, and joys that I have experienced and am experiencing since GetReal.