The Harms of Excessive Criticism

One of the things I hate receiving from others more than almost anything else is criticism. Looking back, so many of my interactions growing up involved heavy criticism, both of who I was and what I did. This came from family members (whether older or younger than me), classmates, teachers, and others who worked at school. Much of the criticism seemed endless, with whoever was forcing it upon me going on and on at great length while I was expected to sit there quietly and take it. Even when it didn’t reach those extremes, my many critics would still often belabor the point; they’d spend minutes rehashing something they could easily have said in under thirty seconds and explain things four or five different ways when one way sufficed.

Unfortunately, while I received mountains of criticism when I was growing up, it has also followed me into adulthood. I’ve been heavily criticized at different jobs by customers, coworkers, and those above me in the company hierarchy. Criticism has flowed so much in my different hobbies and interests, both from those more skilled than me and from those less skilled. The vast majority of this criticism has been unsolicited, much of it was useless, and a fair amount happened in public or semi-public places instead of in private. All of that makes me feel ashamed, embarrassed, and resentful of the critics.

While I criticize a lot of ideas and group actions, I almost never criticize individual humans, especially in a group situation. This is especially the case when I’m teaching or helping someone with an activity I know pretty well, such as juggling. In those cases, I’ll point out the positives and encourage them to do more of that rather than just telling them what not to do. In addition to being much easier to hear, that also is much more practical since there are endless wrong ways to do anything, so just telling them not to do things repeatedly doesn’t get them closer to how to do it properly. I also only offer feedback if someone requests it and I make sure to avoid embarrassing the person, especially if others are around.

Simply put, excessive criticism hurts me. When someone criticizes almost everything I do and almost never compliments me, I feel so discouraged and demoralized, as if I can’t do anything right. Rather than encouraging me to do better in order to please the critic or show them up by doing something they thought I couldn’t, the guilt, shame, embarrassment, confusion, and disappointment that heavy criticism brings with it all make me want to quit or say, “Do it yourself!” Criticism also makes me wonder why any critic asks me to do anything if they always want me to do it differently and never give me credit, even managing to seemingly go out of their way to criticize me when I do something the way they want it done!

When one or more humans hang out in a casual situation, criticism is almost always unnecessary. There’s no need for anyone to criticize another’s taste in food, drink, music, movies, TV, books, general entertainment, hobbies, interests, clothes, fashion, or anything else. With subjective preferences, nobody is right or wrong in what they enjoy, and criticism just makes the critic look silly. Unfortunately, criticism seems incessant in most human interactions nowadays (gossip, venting, complaining, unsolicited advice, mockery, sarcasm, condescension, excessive opinions, etc.), which is why I prefer my own company most of the time.

I reckon this is a big part of why I was so gentle with my dog Sawyer. Aside from how he made it easy to love him and be kind to him, we both got criticized excessively, and I wanted to give him more compassion, understanding, and patience. I’m sure that’s part of how we got as close as we did and remained close friends until his death. That’s a trait that my closest human family members and friends also share: lots of compliments, little criticism, and gentleness when criticism does arise. I wish everyone else would learn from these beautiful souls and be kinder and less critical toward those around them. Much as I hope that happens, I’m not holding my breath for it.

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My Defunctland

One of my favorite YouTube channels is called Defunctland. Although its creator currently makes videos talking about a variety of attractions and media that are no longer around, the channel’s early focus was quite different. Alongside the YouTube videos, Defunctland started out as a virtual theme park containing virtual recreations of rides, shows, and other attractions that were removed from real-life theme parks. Anyone who accessed Defunctland would be able to virtually experience those attractions long after they were gone from the real world.

Similarly to my idea of a life buffet, I would love a real version of Defunctland that contained all the wonderful animals, humans, places, events, and objects that I’ve lost. My Defunctland would be me as a little kid enjoying a perpetual summer. Instead of having to go to school or work, I could hang out all the time with my dog Sawyer, go on fun trips, visit with family members on a regular basis, and just enjoy life with everyone. Endless days doing what I love with whom I love. What could be better?

This has been on my mind a lot lately because of some big changes happening at Disney World. Lots of attractions I love have either already closed this year or will be closing sometime in the next year or two. The one I feel saddest about losing is MuppetVision 3D, which is a fun show featuring the Muppets and which combines film, animatronics, CGI, a live costumed performer, and plenty of special and practical effects. I’ve always loved Muppets, this particular attraction, and the nice feelings in the Muppets Courtyard part of the park. The fact that it opened one year to the day after Jim Henson’s death and was his last big project during his life adds even more sentimentality to MuppetVision 3D for me. Unfortunately, both it and the nearby PizzeRizzo restaurant are both closing forever soon (although they’re still open at the time of this writing in case you’d like to check them out before they’re gone). I’ve purchased a ticket to go check them out at the end of this month before they’re only memories. I plan to eat at PizzeRizzo for lunch (which will be my first, and likely last, time there) and watch MuppetVision 3D as many times as possible while getting plenty of pictures and videos from the entirety of Muppets Courtyard. I’m sure it will be a bittersweet trip, with plenty of laughter and tears. You can read about my trip after I post about it in early June.

The loss of MuppetVision 3D will be the latest in a long line of painful losses going back more than five years at this point. It seems that everything I enjoyed as a little kid through to when I was a young adult is slowly but surely being taken away from me. I’ve likely written before about how that will only continue as I get older and have to say goodbye to more friends, family members, animal friends, and more. Whether through changing life situations, falling out, death, or something else, I will eventually lose everything and everyone I care about, either while I’m still on Earth or after I die. When my time does come, I’d feel delighted to find that I get to live forever with everyone and everything I’ve ever known and loved exactly as they were during my life. Even if that doesn’t happen, the idea of it brings me immense comfort and makes me want to spend more time with beloved humans, animals, and things before it’s too late.

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A Letter to Myself

Dear Ian,

Things are hard for you now. In some way, they’ve always been hard. I wish I could say that it’ll all get easier. Unfortunately, while some things will get much better, others will get far worse. I’ll tell you about some of those things before ending with some good news.

You’re used to having good years and bad years close to each other. In fact, for a while, every good year was followed by a bad year and vice versa. However, the painful truth is that you’ll go through a five-year period that contains three bad years in a row and one decent year before a fourth bad year. That will be the most painful, trying time of your life, and you’ll wonder during the hardest years how you’ll ever make it through.

As you might expect, the hardest things you’ll encounter, both during that long stretch of bad years and outside of it, will be the deaths of your loved ones. It’ll be incredibly hard to lose your grandparents, a few friends and acquaintances, and a family member’s beloved cat Buddy. Most painful of all will be our dog Sawyer’s death. No matter how hard you think that will be, it will be even worse than you can imagine. You’ll cry nearly all day, every day for months on end. You’ll develop routines that help you get by, including looking at pictures and videos of Sawyer each day. The pain will knock you down for almost two years, and you’ll go for almost a year wondering if the pain will ever get significantly better. Some humans will tell you that it won’t. You can take comfort in the fact that everyone who says, “The pain never goes away” is wrong. Although it will take a long time and a lot of crying, keep doing the work and you’ll feel much better within a few months, and significantly better within a few years.

You’ve also struggled a lot financially since you first joined the working world. That, too, will get better. Good jobs are on the horizon, and you’ll get back to a good financial place sooner than you know. Even before then, you’ll still always have enough to get by from performing gigs, random gifts and donations, and some odd jobs for folks you know.

Now let’s talk about one of your biggest lifelong struggles: people pleasing. For as long as you can remember, you’ve done nearly anything to make others like you and accept you, to your own detriment. Although this is a struggle that at times seems endless, you will gradually feel more comfortable being yourself and become less interested in the approval of others. Keep releasing guilt, shame, and self-hatred as you also welcome joy, peace, and love for yourself. Though this road is long, it does have an end, and you’ll get much further along it than you ever thought possible.

If you could see where we are now, you’d be amazed. While you almost always want to make more progress and often feel unsatisfied wherever you are, I’m so thankful for how far we’ve come, and I can’t wait for you to see it. I admire you for persevering despite all the bad hands life has dealt you, and I’m always here for you. We’ll get through whatever life throws at us together, just as we always have.

Love,

Ian

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A Look Back

Last Saturday, I worked at a senior prom for local students. During some moments when things were going well and no work needed to be done for a while, I started reminiscing about my high school proms. Aside from my nice rental suits and lots of fun dancing with my schoolmates, I don’t remember much about the proms. I actually remember the homecoming dances a bit better, perhaps because they were in the school gymnasium and were less formal than the proms were. In any event, all those dances gave me some fun times and nice memories.

While I don’t miss high school overall and I’m glad to be done with it, I do miss many of the nice things that happened both at school and outside of it during that time of my life. Aside from the school dances, there were several trips I enjoyed a lot, especially the senior trips where we went skiing in winter and to Disney World around spring break. Some of the things outside of school that I miss include having lots of free time, no bills, few responsibilities, and a super predictable life. Things were much simpler and more routine for me back then, and I miss how easy things seemed overall, both at the time and looking back now.

Something more significant I miss is how unaware I was as a kid and teenager of how awful humans can be toward each other, especially in daily life. Throughout almost every regular job I’ve had, some performing gigs, random stranger encounters, and even interactions with friends/acquaintances and family members, I’ve learned so much since high school graduation about the depths to which the average person can sink. Everything from deception to manipulation to gaslighting to gossip to violence and then some. While there were some glimpses of the darker side of humanity while I was in high school, it was nothing compared to what I’ve learned, seen, and experienced firsthand since. Encountering it or even just thinking about it often demolishes my optimism and hope for the future.

Most of all, I miss my dog Sawyer, my grandparents, and other loved ones who were alive when I was in high school but have died since. I’m at a point in my healing journey that I sometimes forget they’ve died; whenever that happens, it’s always a hard slap in the face of a reminder that they’re gone and I’ll never see them again on Earth. Whether through death, moving away, or simply by giving up on me, it seems that I am slowly losing the most caring, loving, and supportive people in my life, humans and animals alike. And that’s only going to get worse as I get older.

Some folks are said to have peaked in high school, meaning that that was their best, most enjoyable, and most successful time in their life. I do relate to that idea to a point, which is a bit funny considering I was one of two students in my graduating class voted most likely to succeed. Despite missing much from that period of my life, I don’t think much about it, and I talk about it even less frequently. When I do, it seems like another life, considering how much has changed since then, both for better and for worse. I never had any idea of how my life after high school would be, and I still have far more questions than answers in that area. Even if I had thought through possible futures back then, I would never have guessed that this is where I’d be now, or that I’d have gotten here the way I did. Things have been pretty weird and painful for me in the thirteen years since I graduated high school. I hope the next thirteen years will be more enjoyable and peaceful.

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Review of April 2025

This April was one of the most unusual months I’ve had in a long time. Fortunately, it was also one of the best months I’ve had in a long time. Let’s explore the highlights together, shall we?

Overall, April was tied with February as my least painful month of 2025 so far. It wasn’t painless, however. There was some more pain than usual due to the three-year anniversary of my dog Sawyer’s death. That prompted me to focus more on letting go than I had for quite some time. In addition to starting to reread Letting Go by David Hawkins, I also did more letting go sessions as I could, especially on weekends when I didn’t have to work. That tremendously reduced my emotional pain. Other kinds of pain came from my new job. In some cases, the pain was literal: I replaced the insoles in both my work shoes and my main non-work shoes to give my feet some relief. Fortunately, that worked out wonderfully, and my feet feel much more comfortable both at work and elsewhere. There was also some emotional pain from not knowing how to do the job when I started it, having way less free time, changing my bedtime routines around, and making other big changes due to my new job. That pain went down considerably as I adjusted to my new routines, got a better feel for the job, and felt much more at ease due to having good money coming in regularly once again.

The huge improvement in my financial situation allowed me to resume recurring investment contributions, which is something I hadn’t done since late 2024. I even opened up a Roth IRA! Outside of investments, I joined my local YMCA and started lifting weights again for more strength since my job involves lots of heavy lifting. Although it’ll take time for my strength to go back up, I’m sure it will happen, especially since I’m going about it in a more intelligent way than I did in the past. I also loved being back at the YMCA, which I hadn’t gone to regularly since 2015. The weights, sights, sounds, and even smells brought back some wonderful memories and are great encouragers for me to keep going regularly.

Despite some pain and challenges, I’d say April was my best month of 2025 up to this point. Having a lovely April was such a relief after so much trouble this year and so many painful years in such a short span of time. Beyond so much good happening in April itself, it also sowed the seeds for even more beneficial things to happen in the coming months and years. I look forward to seeing them unfold, especially the wonderful surprises that I haven’t even imagined yet.

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Three Years Without Sawyer

Last Saturday, April 19th, was the third anniversary of my dog Sawyer’s death. Hard to believe it’s been over three years since I last got to visit, hold, hug, kiss, snuggle, cuddle, walk with, play with, nap with, and care for him. Here’s how it went and how I’m doing after three years without Sawyer.

As always, this anniversary of Sawyer’s death was painful. Overall, it was more painful than an average day in my life. I felt extra sadness all this month, and even some late last month knowing what was coming. To my surprise, however, there were almost no tears. The few that did happen mostly came from rereading Mister Rogers’ lovely book When A Pet Dies that morning. As always, I felt better after that brief cry.

This anniversary of Sawyer’s death was the calmest so far. Unlike the first anniversary when I took a bunch of orphaned baby possums to a rehab facility in another city or the second anniversary when I went to still another city for a wedding rehearsal, I got to stay in town this year. I juggled with some friends in a local park, pet a cute, friendly little Dachshund, and did lots of letting go at home. In fact, most of my day consisted of staying home and getting things done in between letting go sessions. That’s why it went as well as it did and why I felt ok for most of it. Peace turned out to be much more abundant that day than I thought it would, thank goodness.

Extra busyness at my new job made this year’s anniversary both easier and harder. It was easier in that burning off extra energy helps me sleep better and heal, and good money coming in regularly means less stress and a greater ability to get what I need (and some of what I want). What made it harder was that I had less time to let go without distractions during the work week (letting go while I do other things is still incredibly difficult for me) and some stresses on the job have added to my pain burden. More than anything, I’m glad my new job gives me Friday through Sunday off every week. Having enough time to rest, play, celebrate, and mourn without going to work at all during and around the anniversary of Sawyer’s death was wonderful.

My own experience on this day each year is that everyone who told me, “The pain never goes away” was wrong. Mister Rogers said it well in this quote from When a Pet Dies: “It can be very hard when a pet you love dies. You may feel that you’ll never stop being sad, that the hurt will never go away… but it will.” While sometimes the pain is overwhelming on certain days, all the letting go work I’ve done over the past three years has both drastically reduced the total amount of pain around life without Sawyer and minimized the intensity of the remaining pain. I’m certainly glad that the pain has gone down so much over the last three years while the memories, pictures, videos, and several of Sawyer’s personal belongings remain. With continued work over the remaining pain, I believe that it will someday go away completely.

One reason I’m glad that the pain is going away is because each passing second not only takes me further away from my last Earthly moments with Sawyer but also closer to the point that I will have been remembering Sawyer for longer than I knew him. Since we had eleven years together and he’s been gone for three years at this point, it’ll still be a good many years before that happens. While it’s still a ways away, though, I know how fast time can fly. For example, it seems like only yesterday that I was in high school despite the fact that I graduated almost thirteen years ago. With that in mind, I want to be well prepared for the day when Sawyer’s absence from my life will be longer than the time he was present. If I can manage to work through the lingering guilt and shame around things I wish I’d done with Sawyer, things I wish I hadn’t done to him, and how I wish I’d better stood up for him in his final days on Earth, then I’m sure I’ll be able to effectively handle the point at which my time without Sawyer exceeds my time with him. I hope that’s how it will work out, and, above all else, I hope that each moment that takes me further away from my last Earthly visit with Sawyer will also take me closer to our eventual Heavenly reunion.

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Who and What I Miss Most

There is so much I miss from past parts of my life. Since April tends to be one of the most painful months of the year for me, I’ll go over some of what I miss most in this post. Here we go.

To start, there is my dog Sawyer. Anyone who’s read one of the posts I’ve published in the last three years knows how much I miss him. The remaining pain over his death and subsequent absence is always at its worst in April, which was the month in which he died nearly three years ago. Thank goodness I’ve released as much pain as I have since April 2022. I can’t imagine how I’d have gotten through Sawyer’s death or any of the other huge, heartbreaking happenings that happened in the years since. It’s been hard enough even with all the healing I’ve done.

A close second to Sawyer are my human family members who have died, most of all my grandparents. I so wish I had more time with them, could still visit with them, had seized more opportunities to spend time with them in the past, and had gotten to know them much better. Both my paternal and maternal grandparents lived through some huge moments in human history, and I would have loved to have heard about their experiences in some or all of those events. I often feel sad whenever I remember that I can’t call or visit with them and tell them about the good things that are going on for me as of late, especially my maternal grandparents since they were in my life for so long and knew at least a bit about the hard times I experienced over the past twelve years. I hope they didn’t worry too much about me or how my future would unfold. I wish I could ask them about that and let them know that I’m doing better now.

Next up is 2018 and the many wonderful things I experienced in that wonderful year. I loved going out swing dancing several times a week, having sleeping routines that felt more comfortable and practical for my free time, visiting friends both nearby and far away, going on several wonderful trips, experiencing a year that was mostly good after a year that was mostly bad, and having a lighter work schedule that let me have more fun and downtime while still bringing in enough money to do all the lovely things I did that year. Almost everything back then seemed to have a magical, warm glow around it. Given how disappointing 2019 was in comparison to 2018 and how awful most of the years since 2019 have been for me, I’d do almost anything to relive 2018 (or at least have a year that’s similarly lovely).

If I could group everything I miss into one point that pretty much sums it all up, it would be the point about how I miss being a kid. Despite lots of struggles and plenty of things I wish had never happened, being a kid also gave me a lot of play, fun, and a sense of adventure. The only responsibilities I had were schoolwork, some extracurriculars, and a few small things around the house. With most weekends and longer breaks from school eliminating all but the house responsibilities, I had lots of time to play, swim, watch TV and movies, read, go on family trips, and just enjoy being. No bills, no job, and no huge expectations from myself or anybody else. Others gave me rides everywhere I needed to go and at least a few places I wanted to go, made sure I had the essentials, and took care of enough stuff that I could have lots of fun with few to no big-picture worries. There was a sense that everything would be ok, which I also miss dearly. So much nice stuff has been removed from my life and even more will be removed before my time on Earth is over. Looking back to before 2020, I see plenty of wonderful times with a bit of struggle. Looking back over the last five years, I see mostly pain and struggle with only a small handful of good times. It’s hard to be optimistic about the future when the recent past has been so painful.

The huge changes that have happened over the past few weeks make it seem as if the wonderful humans, animals, places, and events that are no longer around have been gone for even longer than they have. Sawyer was with me from before I started my first regular job until a few months after I left the one I had in late 2021. I so wish he were still here to celebrate with me in the good times and make even a horrible day instantly better by loving on me as soon as I walk in the door at home. I also wish my grandparents were still here to show me unconditional love and support through all seasons of life. I’ve had so much nostalgia lately about them and the wonderful times we shared together, and I’ve been using this lovely song to help me release some pain. Now that neither Sawyer nor any of my grandparents are around anymore, my life feels so much emptier. One of the worst parts of all this is that it can sometimes seem as if they were never here in the first place. Since my grandparents’ house was sold back in January, almost nobody in the family talks about them within earshot of me. Similarly, hardly anybody has mentioned Sawyer since he died almost three years ago. The absence of much conversation around my dead loved ones adds even more to the pain that their absence from Earth has caused.

It seems like I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes. Every few years, some big change comes along and blows my existing life into pieces. Even when those changes have been good for me, they still make it seem like the life I had before they came along dies in the process. I’m currently going through the death of the life I knew from the time Sawyer died until late last month and I have no idea what this next phase of my life will hold. Unlike many past phases which were awful, I hope this one will be positive. I’ll find out over time, and I’ll let you know along the way.

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Renewed Hope

Lots of my recent posts have been negative. Today’s will be different. Let’s explore some things that have given me renewed hope as of late.

After years of financial struggle, I’m now making good money regularly again thanks to my new job. If things go well here, I’ll soon be in a much better financial position than I was when I left the regular working world in late 2021. Beyond that, by this time next year, I’ll be in a better financial position than I’ve ever been before. That has given me so much relief and is helping me get back to a solid financial place.

In addition to some great money, however, this job has also brought a number of difficulties. The biggest have been huge changes in my sleeping schedule and the morning and nighttime routines I stuck to for almost three years. It’s been hard to adjust the time I spend by my dog Sawyer’s grave every morning and night. The job has also taken away a lot of my free time during most weekdays, which has forced me to get more creative about going through my hobbies, self-care, and other activities before bedtime. Even though I can do it, I’d rather not have to do so, which is always a difficult place to be.

Back to the positives. The increased physical activity from my job has made it much easier for me to fall asleep and stay asleep for most of the night. That and sticking with my new bedtime routine has resulted in me feeling more refreshed after waking up on most days. In fact, I’m probably getting more sleep now than I was before I started this job. To my delight, it took less than a week for me to adjust to both waking up and going to bed many hours earlier than usual, and it’s quite easy at this point for me to fall asleep at my new bedtime. I’m so glad it’s been a much faster, easier adjustment than I thought it would be.

Additionally, I’m only working with a small handful of guys at my job. We all work well together and like each other, and they’ve done a great job welcoming me in and showing me the ropes. While there’s still plenty for me to learn, I’ve already learned quite a bit in the short amount of time I’ve been there. My guess is that I’ll pass the initial trial period with flying colors and be with this company for many more years.

Since I’m still figuring out how to handle my days outside of work (both on workdays and my days off), I’ve withdrawn from most of the socializing I did for years. Although I still go to some events on the weekends and plan to continue hosting my usual juggling meetings, I don’t go out nearly as much as I once did. There are many people whom I used to see at least a few times a month but haven’t seen at the time of this writing since late February. While I do miss some of them, I’m glad to be away from so much loudness, nonstop talking, interrupting, judgment, and other stuff I hate. It’s so nice to have much more peace, quiet, and serenity in my regular life.

It’s wonderful to have all these positive things going after so many years of struggle. When it comes to getting my life together again, I now no longer fear that I’m going to lose before I even start playing. That huge stress reduction has made it much easier to handle my remaining emotional pain, which means that this job is helping me with two of my three goals for this year. I look forward to seeing how the rest of 2025 plays out as I continue to improve at my job, rebuild my finances, and release old pain.

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Good Riddance, March 2025

March 2025 was both my worst month of this year and the worst month I’ve had in a long time. Here’s what made it awful and why I’m so glad it’s over.

My health got quite bad for most of last month. The issues were similar to that of March 2024, except even worse in some ways. I felt concerned about what might be happening, especially when the methods that had worked in the past seemed to exacerbate the problems this time around. It’s fairly rare that I have bad health issues and even rarer that the usual methods fail, so this was a big scare for me.

March also featured some disappointments in my search for a second job. I attended a job fair after learning about it the night before. While some attendees landed interviews or even got hired on the spot, unfortunately, I did not. Determined to keep going, I started using a job-finding website to look for jobs I’d be able and willing to do. The website also made it easy to apply to those jobs, so I started applying to one new job each day. Despite not hearing a word back from most of those places, I did manage to get an interview with one! It ended up being a few minutes and left me with the impression that I wouldn’t get it. That got me feeling majorly depressed. A much better second interview at the job a few days later gave me hope that it just might happen. I also applied to a few other jobs the very next day. Even if I get a good one, it will still take quite some time to improve my financial situation, and I have lingering concerns there.

One of my financial struggles as of late was a big, unexpected expense. That really discouraged me and seemed like a huge slap in the face, especially after all I’ve done to try to get back on my feet after being down for so long. It also made me feel even more desperate for a gig, more hours at my current job, a second job, or something else to bring in emergency money before it’s too late.

There were a few more experiences that added even more to my pain and left a bad taste in my mouth for March as a whole. Archie the rhino died at my local zoo after living there since 1975. He was one of the oldest rhinos in the world and his over sixty descendants helped keep the Southern white rhinoceros population going. I’ll miss seeing him on my zoo visits. To top it all off, I had a brief fight with a family member on one of the final days of the month that brought up a lot of old pain and left me feeling angry, scared, and depressed for nearly two whole days last weekend.

All of this had me feeling majorly depressed. Even more than the normal amount of depression I’m prone to feeling. By the time March ended, I was feeling a ton of despair, hopelessness, and seemed to be at the end of my rope. It was as if all the ways I have messed up my life had come back to haunt me, and that there was no way to avoid or recover from all the bad seeds I had sown. I also felt extra sad knowing that April would bring with it the three-year anniversary of my dog Sawyer’s death. His absence made everything mentioned above even more painful and harder to handle.

Fortunately, there were some good things in March. Some of my favorites were the extra time I got to spend with family members whom I don’t see often. Several of us had lunch together one day at my aunt and uncle’s house, there was a similar visit at my older sister’s house another day, and I spent a lovely afternoon with my aunt a bit after that. I had lots of good juggling afternoons with some great people, including a wonderful gig on the first day of March. I enjoyed playing some fun board games and had many fun times at the zoo; although I wouldn’t consider paying tribute to Archie at his celebration of life to be fun, I’m still glad I could participate. The worst of my health problems seemed to finally go away, thank goodness, and I feel much better physically than I did for most of last month. I also I met with a job coach shortly before starting a second job fairly quickly after talking with the owner of the company. It seems promising and I’ll keep you updated on it.

It took me a while to determine whether January or March was the worst month of this year for me (which gives you an idea of how 2025 is going for me if two of the three months that have happened so far were both incredibly painful). After all, I had some health issues back in January as well. A bit of car trouble, saying goodbye to Banks the jaguar at my local zoo, and the loss of my grandparents’ house all gave me a great deal of pain in January. However, because of the different sort of health issues that were more concerning to me, the death of Archie the rhino, that family fight, financial issues that didn’t come up until last month, and a huge amount of emotional pain, I now consider March to have been my worst month of 2025. I hope that each month from here on out is much better as far as my health, relationships, finances, and emotions go.

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Things I Wish I Could Change About My Past

Lately, I’ve been feeling quite depressed over my current life situation, especially after getting some bad news today. There has been a lot of regret over many things I wish I’d done differently in life. Sometimes it boggles my mind as to how much I’ve messed up my life and how many bad decisions I’ve made in a relatively short amount of time. I feel grateful to have learned as much as I have from various authors, leaders, friends, family members, and others who have shared wisdom that has, undoubtedly, made me better equipped for both handling the bad and maximizing the good that life has thrown my way. Still, I wish I could inform my younger self about various skills to learn, pitfalls to avoid, opportunities to seize, and so on. My life situation would be vastly better at this point if that were possible. While I may not be able to do that, I can still compile a list of changes I’d make if I could and share it with you here. Without further ado, here are the biggest things I wish I could change about my past.

  1. Live a better life with Sawyer. Out of all the things I regret in life, my greatest regrets are all around life with my dog Sawyer. I so wish I’d treated him better, spent more quality time with him, taken him on many more walks, advocated for him toward the end of his life to possibly get him more time and better health before his death, taken more pictures and videos of him, traveled more with him, and better met his needs. Making our time together much better would have likely give me far less pain to heal after he died due to having far fewer regrets, both over things I wish I had done and things I wish I hadn’t done. Even now, almost three years after his death and after releasing the vast majority of the pain caused by his absence, the pain is still sometimes overwhelming. Sometimes I physically hurt over the fact that I won’t get any chances to do things differently or take better care of him while I’m on this planet. If I ever adopt another animal friend, I will do a much better job with that new friend than I did with Sawyer.

  2. Learn emotional intelligence as a kid. This is THE skill I wish I had learned when I was a little kid. The central technique from Letting Go by David Hawkins has transformed my life since I started practicing it regularly in late 2020 and allowed me to survive the insanely painful last five years. Still, I would be much better off if from a young age I knew how to heal pain as it came up. It would have been much easier to recognize emotional disturbances in myself and in others and respond mindfully, compassionately, and effectively if I knew how to handle negative emotions from a young age. Additionally, it would have prevented emotional pain from sticking around, festering, and solidifying to the point that it caused lots of other emotional and physical health issues and became much harder to remove later on. I’m sure that clearing out pain as it arose throughout my life would also have resulted in significantly less pain after Sawyer’s death and gotten me back on my feet much sooner.

  3. Develop effective communication skills at a young age. Here’s another one I’d like to have learned from the start. Even at their best, my communication skills have never been as good as I’d thought they were. While they’ve improved a lot over time and I still hope for even more improvement over the course of my remaining life, my upbringing would have been so much better if my communication skills were as good then as they are now. I would have avoided so much trouble with family, friends, teachers, classmates, folks on the job, etc. My interactions with others, both past and present, would have been much better as knowing how to effectively resolve conflict would have prevented so many burned bridges and ruined relationships.

  4. Take good care of myself from the start. Even when I knew the importance of taking good care of myself, I still neglected it many a time. It’s still a struggle for me to focus on healthy eating, exercise, proper breathing, stress management, etc. Consistently getting enough quality sleep is about the only thing I did as a kid that contributed a lot to my health; that’s strange to think about as I hardly ever get enough quality sleep at this point. I wonder if all the years of bad self-care either caused or exacerbated the health issues I’ve dealt with since last year. Either way, I hope that taking better care of myself from here on out will improve my physical health and make at least that part of my life situation better.

  5. Get smart about money much earlier. Money is another big area of struggle for me, especially since last year. However, my money problems started long before 2024. I wish I had gotten a job much sooner, started investing much earlier, avoided reckless spending, saved more money, made far fewer impulse purchases, and been wiser about knowing when to spend some money now to avoid having to spend more money later on (such as putting off spending a decent amount of money on needed maintenance for my car that resulted in a much larger repair bill on down the line). All of that would have put me in a much better financial position and overall life situation over the last five years. It would also have given me a much bigger emergency fund to keep me afloat after Sawyer’s death when I couldn’t even think about working a regular job and could only take on the occasional performing gig, which would likely have kept me in good financial shape until I’d healed enough to get back into the regular working world.

  6. Take one college class per semester from 2013 onward. This is the only item on this list that gives me some hesitation. I stopped going to my local college in late 2012 after accumulating 27 credits through dual enrollment during my senior year of high school and the fall semester after graduation. The one class I’ve taken there since then was in late 2022. I had such a negative experience with the professor, the overall experience, and the fresh pain from Sawyer’s death a few months earlier (which made all other pain I felt during that time even worse) that I haven’t been back since. If instead of stopping completely in 2012 I had just scaled back to 3 credits per semester, I figure I would have accumulated enough credits to get an AA by 2016 while avoiding overwhelm and still leaving plenty of time for work, play, travel, rest, family gatherings, etc. Besides having accomplished that within the lives of Sawyer and both of my maternal grandparents, I might also have better job opportunities (past and present) and a better current life situation as a result. With all the current stress around my health issues, desperately bad financial situation, and increasingly dwindling hope for the future, I can’t even think about going back at this point.

  7. Realize how little time there is. The idea that “It’s never too late” couldn’t be more wrong. So many of my loved ones have died, including some who were younger than me and seemed to have decades of life ahead of them. Even more painful has been the deaths of close family members, whether I knew them for decades or just over a decade. The void they’ve left after knowing and loving me for so long has been awful, as has the knowledge that I can’t ever have another Earthly visit with them despite desperately wishing that I could. Unfortunately, I repeatedly gave up time that I could have spent with many of those loved ones in exchange for far less meaningful and important things (some of which I could still have gotten after spending time with loved ones instead of having to choose one or the other). My only hope is that we’ll all be reunited after death and get to spend a peaceful eternity together, with no more disease, diverging life paths, obligations, death, or anything else tearing us apart ever again.
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