Why Do We Still Hold Onto Things That Hurt?

To be honest, I wish I could give you or myself a clear concise answer, but it's really a lot more intricate than that.

We may keep a tight grasp on things, people, memories, places and they hurt. They hurt because we don't have them anymore and it's that feeling of loss, that grieving sensation that kills us inside.

So why do we mull over these things that murder our happiness? Why would we be so stupid to even do that to ourselves? Well, let's analyse this in terms of a drug.

People take illegal drugs because of the feeling it gives them. They get high, they're happy, in a trance. For a moment they're in a perfect world of their own,  blissfully ignorant about anything else. Nothing can go wrong. It supplies them with a buzz, feeds them with an ecstatic sensation that they dream to be eternal. Imagine life being like that all the time.

This goes for the same for whatever we are clenching tightly in our clutches. We loved the ecstasy it let us delve into making us crave to go back to that moment, to experience that perfect time of bliss again. But we can't. And that's where the pain cunningly creeps in. We can't go back to it. We miss that feeling. We fear that we won't get it back. It's almost as if we need it again. That's when it hurts, bad.


Ultimately, it's a little paradox of its own.
We hold on to be happy.


How do we stop though? It's not that simple and it may never be. We have to eventually try to let go and create new memories. Find new things, explore new places, take a new drug perhaps.

Of course, cherish the old. It was and always will be a part of us and something in our life we desired at the time. And as they say, 'where there is pain there is gain.'

Let's use this pain to change us, but let it not empower us.

"I have memories, but only a fool stores his past in the future." - David Gerrold. I like that quote.


Free ourselves.
xoxo