a certain definition of laissez faire can be found to say that it is “a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering”. though it generally applies to a political strategy that favors reduced governmental involvement with economic affairs, this particular vague definition sparks a flame of familiarity within me. my personal life, not too long ago for three or so months, resembled something close to absolute chaos. multiple facets of my life simultaneously wreaked havoc upon my own happiness and my surroundings, and i spiraled downwards with absolutely no idea how to pick myself up from the destruction consuming me. without using fancy words, i’ll just sum it up for you in more understandable terms; my life fucking sucked. i lived my life during those few months with a permanent raincloud over my head that followed me everywhere i went. it was a mid-mid-life crisis, sort of, or i guess an almost-quarter-life crisis. but enough with the self-pity party, and back to fancy economic policies. what does laissez faire have anything to do with my supposed almost-quarter-life crisis?
i learned many lessons throughout my suffering, lessons that i’ll carry with me for the remainder of my life. one of those lessons was the basic principle of laissez faire. the more effort i put into trying to take control of my life, the more i found myself to actually have less control. every move i took, despite being deliberately planned out with careful consideration and the approval of many outside opinions, got me nowhere in the end. it was all wasted effort. i put myself through hell and back trying to rebuild the fragments of things that were already broken beyond repair. amidst the fact that those valuable parts of my life were broken beyond repair, i learned that life will eventually go on without those shattered pieces. i learned to not see them as moments of opportunity that contained the potential for things going the way i wanted them to, but rather as memories. glimpses of my past life, ones that i should put away for safekeeping: like files in a filing cabinet. i learned to not lose countless nights of sleep over events that simply took their own course.
the way i see it, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. no amount of texts, lengthy letters i’ve sent or never will send, expressions of remorse, genuine apologies, or unnecessary worrying is going to change that. i thought i could fix what was already broken, and that dangerous mindset ruined me.
if i could go back in time, would i change the way acted, blindly and blissfully optimistic? absolutely not; it was all a learning experience. i’m young and i still have my whole life ahead of me, and as soon as i saw that, i knew that letting the outcomes of these events hinder my growth as a person was not an option. no matter how much i wanted to change these outcomes, i grew to understand that it simply wasn’t a possibility. understanding that was a key component to the reestablishment of my happiness, the removal of the permanent raincloud over my head, the blossoming of my surroundings once more, and the opening of the door to the next stage of my life.
because i’ve finally been able to open my eyes to the importance of the attitude of simply letting things go their way, i have become a better version of the person i once was. i’m finally happy again, surrounded by numerous new and old friends that appreciate, care about, and see me for who i am. people that treat me the way i deserve to be treated. it took me three months, but i have successfully gotten over and moved on from the toxic presences in my life, the very same ones that caused me to lose sleep and have dreams that haunted my waking thoughts.
so thanks to a certain outlook on this economic term that is probably found in many scholarly history textbooks, i can happily say that i am at peace with my past, and ready for my future.
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E.L.