I thought it would be a good segwey into my next point to begin by stating the laws of motion.. No, I don't mean the auto accident caused by them into the back of my car...ha. I mean the scientific laws of motion.
1. "A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force."
Or more simply put... a body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion remains in motion, until it is acted upon by another force.
There is a direct reflection of this in how life happens, too. We can get mired down in where we are and what we are doing, even if it is in a bad situation, and we will just keep repeating the same process over and over until a force rises up within us to say... I've had enough with this and do something to act upon the process.
I was reflecting today about my time in Florida. Whew... what an experience... not really sure it's one that I will be lamenting losing, any time soon. But, let me recollect some of it.
Well, I arrived in the state in the middle of a pandemic without a car, staying in the cheapest motel I could find and used SBA money to buy a car for my delivery business with which to... buy. It wasn't a great vehicle. It was previously owned by a painter, and the back of the vehicle was covered in paint splatters, and there were numerous mechanical issues I'd have to fix, including the busted windshield I'd have to fix before I could even get it registered and insured to drive. I would stay for 6 months in a extended stay that was in such a bad area of town that it literally had bars surrounding the building, and you had to enter and leave through the front office desk door. You weren't allowed to have overnight guests, and I heard gunshots more than once.
Eventually, I earned enough to move into a better extended stay, but that one would have issues, too. In my time, here, I have had about 7 different neighbors that shared my wall and more upstairs. The police would visit for one issue or another about once a month, and that vehicle I mentioned would end up being stolen from this location, while I lived here. There were multiple parties that would be loud outside my door that would run into the early morning hours... like 3-4 sometimes. And, I had one police officer ask me about the upstairs neighbors treatment of their kid, who from what I gathered was being beaten or such.
Job wise... some were ok, albeit run on a shoestring budget of technology and disruptive organization. However, there were others that would test me to just stay there just trying to stick it out. In my last one, before I would return to driving full time, again, I would have a woman that I liked but with whom I had completely innocent conversations lasting all but 5 minutes or less about things like what music they liked or what things they liked to do file a harrassment charge against me. There was no merit to it, and it was dismissed rather quickly, but that would be a hint of the workplace I would have. I was hired for one job, but I only worked ONLY in that job for maybe 3 weeks, total.. and then not fully, because I was pulled over to do THIS job or THAT job, because people had quit and they needed someone to cover it. I was having to learn a new department every month to cover someone else's job. It was SPECIFICALLY what I told them I did not want in my job interview. Then, during that time, I would have the beginnings of eye surgeries, and I was out of work for a month with the first one. When I came back, I was assigned a completely new job, because they filled my old one, where I was not trained to do it. Meanwhile, the supervisor over me was demanding that I finish reports for the OLD job that was usually his responsibility to do and of which he had done NOTHING in the time that I was gone. He would go on to pin the blame to his managers upon me for not doing it... while I was tasked out and then medically out. So, I quit.
On the eye issue, I would continue to have eye issues and would have multiple new surgeries til only the last few months, where I had to cover money for rent and food with the slim amount of retirement money I made in that job I had worked and go from monthly to weekly rent to make it happen, at a higher rate. It was during this period, when I was dealing with the realities of my medical challenges and debt challenges that my ex would tell me that she had just decided to not honor our custody agreement, and I would not be getting my child for Christmas or weekends, and if I didn't like I I could "sue me, but you won't win before she is 18, anyway." My ex definitely makes it hard for me to believe in or trust women, and I won't regret leaving the state, so I can be healed in the silence.
Of course, there were other dating disasters in the time. There was the woman that dated me a few times, invited me to stay in her house and sleep in her bed (nothing happened) only to break up with me on my drive home, telling me that GOD had told her that she shouldn't be dating me. Ha. It might have had more to do with her daughter that didn't like her mom dating, anyone. There was the woman that went on one date with me and attacked me, afterwards, for not wanting to continue.. I was honest, and the woman that I told from the start that I was only interested in being friends that attacked me for not walking her to her car, having a problem with her ordering food for her kid at home on my tab, and not being romantic enough... despite... again.. it never being a full date. Oh.. and the woman that messaged and chatted with me for months but never met up with me, canceling our dates or not showing up each scheduled attempt. There were a few more, but you get the picture.
Oh... let's not forget the person that was a close friend to me for a long time but acted in a more than friend fashion, often. She would call or text me to come to her place for wine and chill watching movies or eating food, or we would go out to sit on the beach at night or in a candlelight concert that she suggested among the many two person things we did for months. When I would ask her for a real full date that we called a date, she would get mad and block me and never speak to me, again.... which did great wonders for my self esteem that she would rather end the friendship than go on a single date with me... which wouldn't have been that different than what we were already doing.
Let's see.. there were also multiple mechanical issues. Once, at that job I mentioned, right after hire and before I could even get my paycheck, I had my starter go out and had to be paid by credit for it and alternator and more, as they tried to fix it. Then, because of that credit, I had very little spending money and had to deliver evenings and weekends AS I worked at a job in the day with a two hour evening commute home. There would be other mechanical issues that I had to come up with solutions. But, to simplify, I can't think of a single month that I lived in this state, where I was not facing some kind of unexpected challenge that just popped up. You'd THINK I would have done something about it long before I was finally faced with the reality of having.. NO ONE except a girl I dated (the only good dates) to pick me up from a hospital and having lost all reason and assets for living here. When I reached that point, that was my FORCE that rose within myself to change the motion of a very destructive location and pattern.
2. "At any instant of time, the net force on a body is equal to the body's acceleration multiplied by its mass or, equivalently, the rate at which the body's momentum is changing with time."
Or.. to put it simply, the larger the object, the greater the force needed to change it. That's kinda like when you build up a long marriage with someone that treated you bad over all those years like my first ex. It is even HARDER to escape after it, if you let it build mass around it and gave the other person the feeling that it is ok to treat you like that. So, it is of no surprise that over a decade after that marriage ended.. 14 years, actually, she is still upset that she lost power over me and is still trying to find ways to regain some power to affect me. When you know something is wrong, don't wait trying to see if it will just fix itself. I've become much quicker at recognizing bad signs and ending things than I was at the start. One clear sign is to ask yourself if they are there for YOU or for themselves. I had a meme once that said the quickest way to know if someone is for you is to tell them no. If they care for you, they will accept no for your happiness and seek what you want. If they are only interested in themselves, they will see any act of yours that does not satisfy their desires as a personal attack upon them.
3. "If two bodies exert forces on each other, these forces have the same magnitude but opposite directions."
Or, to continue our life lesson, the more you act to try to fix or improve your life, the more resistance you will find of others or situations that want to keep you as you are. Change is never going to be easy. There is always going to be opposition. But, if you need that change, you need to realize that those opposing forces will keep you in the same broken patterns and be willing to setup NEW patterns or structures that will support the change you are trying to make. I'd also add one thing... debt is a hard force to overcome. So, make sure you are well funded. That will make all the rest easier to overcome.
So, I hope this technique for mentally processing things for me has helped you, too. At the very least, I hope you find it entertaining. Life moves on without us in the directions we begin or the forces placed upon us. If we hope to have any change for the better, it is going to take action and determination to bring it about. Here's to your task to bring that about in your own life, as well.