The pursuit of a better life (the story behind our tagline)

   Ever since the beginning of this blog, I’ve considered only one tagline: in pursuit of a better life. I plastered it on my site, even put it on a t-shirt. But now I’m starting to think maybe it’s time for a change. Let me explain. 

   If you’ve ever wondered where the tagline comes from, today you’re in luck. I’m addressing that very story. 

When life is pain

   Like most angsty teenagers, I went through a phase where I was deeply unhappy. With myself, with my life, and with the world around me. I took it to an extreme, and I was unhappy to the point of illness for the longest time. It was so difficult for me to see the good in things, in myself, in my day, in my life in general. I was truly miserable for years. 

   And sure, I had friends and teen romances. I had hobbies and goals and all of those things, but I don’t think I had a single flash of just happiness without pain surrounding it. (That’s not an easy thing for me to admit.) 

   I remember the first moment in years where I did not feel like I was in absolute pain. I was sitting in math class at sixteen years old. I had just eaten a lunch that I had packed for myself the night before and had really enjoyed it. Then I drank some water. 

   As I sat there, I just looked around the room at all of the people whose names I knew but didn’t know their stories, and for better or worse, I knew that they didn’t know mine either. And I felt a strange sort of burden just lift off of my shoulders. 

   For that moment, it was like no problems existed for me. I wasn’t happy—that wouldn’t come until much later. But I wasn’t feeling hungry or thirsty, I wasn’t scared or embarrassed, I was perfectly comfortable with the temperature of the room and I was sitting just right on the plastic chair. And I felt really and truly okay for the first time in, literally years. 

Self-improvement pays off

   Obviously, I was going to “come back down to earth” after that sort of high. (Although looking back it makes me sad to think that feeling okay for once was a high. But at the time it was, for me.) I had many problems in my life, my head, and my heart at the time. Many reasons to be unhappy. Nevertheless, the experience really stuck with me. And obviously so, because I remember it vividly all these years later. 

   I had been in therapy for about a year at this point. I had been heavily working on myself through thought and behavior management, and this was the first time I had seen any sort of signal that it was helping at all. And it really struck me. 

   I didn’t know exactly what to think of this experience but I knew that I liked it. I wondered what it was, and even more than that, I wondered what it would be like if I could feel that way again. 

“In pursuit of a better life”

   At the time, I couldn’t even conceive of having “okay” being my set point, and “happy” seemed completely out of reach. At the time, that didn’t really matter to me. Something just clicked in my head that I wasn’t going to compare myself to others. Instead, I would just work on improving myself and getting better, to whatever degree I could. 

   I don’t know if you’ve ever been completely miserable before, particularly for any extended period of time. But feeling actually okay for once was very motivating for me. I flew into a frenzy of therapy and self-improvement, because now I saw what it might be able to give me. (A new lease on life.) 

   And while it didn’t happen for a long time, eventually, I got to feeling okay again. For a second time, and then a third. Over time, I was able to string all of those moments together and learn how to keep myself feeling okay most of the time. This was a major accomplishment for me, and it’s what I got from voraciously pursuing a better life, at the expense of the old one, and the old me. 

Experiencing happy

   I don’t remember the first time I felt happy again. It wasn’t as big of an achievement for me as getting to my first moment of “okayness”. I guess getting to happy from a baseline of okay isn’t as big of a step as getting to okay from the depths of misery. 

   Nevertheless, as I continued to be stern with myself and expect my continued improvement, I began experiencing these fleeting moments of happiness again. They didn’t always make sense or come from an expected place, but I was thankful for them, nonetheless. And it was around that time that I began my practice of gratitude, which you can read about in this post from last year’s thanksgiving. (A year in thankfulness)

   Around this time, I really started getting a handle on myself. I started getting into a flow of how to take care of myself and get things done that needed to be taken care of and I would say I boosted my set point up to feeling good, most of the time. 

   To this day, I am amazingly proud of myself for reaching this milestone. I know the sheer amount of effort it took to get me there and for me, it has been a momentous achievement. And a lot of learning had to take place in order to get me all the way there from my complete despair. 

Making a blog

   In May of 2018, I decided to start a blog. To be quite honest, I had no idea what I wanted to be or do with my life, and largely, I still don’t.  But I knew that I had achieved something. Something big. And I knew that I had a story to tell.

   I didn’t know if anyone would listen to what I had to say, but I decided to put my story, thoughts, and experiences online anyway. I decided that even if nobody read them, it wasn’t important. Sharing and exploring transformative topics is an important and authentic part of who I am and I would not be living fully if I did not do it in some way, shape or form. 

   But even more than that, I thought if just one person stopped by my little website and was helped by what I put out there (my stories, my poetry or my more serious and matter-of fact articles), then what I was doing was really worth it. 

   I don’t want anyone to have to suffer the way I did for all those years. And if someone who is comes across my blog and is able to make a little sense out of something I said which triggers their first “moment of okayness”, I would consider that the deepest honor in the world. 

What’s in a name? (Or tagline)

   Looking back on it, starting a blog feels like a natural outgrowth of my recovery from despair. If I could manage even small margins of success in the realm of general happiness, then I wanted to share the techniques with anyone who would listen. And as lovely as the idea was, the blog needed a name. 

   I batted around some ideas as I wrote my first few posts. None were as good or had the stickiness of “the Thoughts that Bind “. I’d heard the phrase, “the ties that bind.” If you’re not familiar, it basically refers to the idea that our families and loved ones largely determine who we become and our life paths. 

   I’ve considered the concept and while I understand it, I’m not sure it’s an ultimate truth. More than anything, I feel that our thoughts are what binds us to our version of reality, at any given time. Thus, the name was born, the Thoughts that Bind. 

   And the tagline seemed only natural. The thing that I most accredited to my improvement was, in fact, my frantic and chronic pursuit of a better life. I thought that others might resonate with that. And after all, who doesn’t want a better life, right? Thus, the tagline was born. “In pursuit of a better life”. I hoped it would have universal appeal. 

   Now that’s the story behind our tagline, “In pursuit of a better life “. Click here for the next post to hear why and how I feel the blog has slowly grown out of it, and what is on the horizon for us. And be sure to let me know what you think! Do you like the old tagline, or would you change it to something else?