Addictions to sex, alcohol, drugs, food, computer, work, gambling, TV. Addictions are signs that people are not fulfilled with their life. Some thing is lacking. Some thing is missing.
I have a friend who asked me, "How badly do you want it?" This got me thinking about addictions and 'how badly does a person want or choose life over their addiction'. Not wanting to go all heavy and deep like some motivational speaker. I want to look at how this relates to life [my life and yours].
People today have fairly good lives. Nothing too dramatic going on. Their partner could be an alcoholic or a gambler. They could be eating themselves to death because they don't see anything worth living for - nothing more exciting, interesting or desirable than their addiction. The addiction feeds the moment and gives instant gratification. There are lots of times when instant gratification is desired.
We could have starvation, all the water dried up, no food. We could have civil wars between nationalities for ridiculous petty unsolvable reasons that could go on forever. We could have it that only one child for every family lives to adulthood [as it was in the old days]. Or that we die at an average age of 50.
By comparison our lives are fairly good. We can leave the abusive guy. We can leave the girl who is so insecure you can never get her to see she is good enough, who hides behind backstabbing to feel better.
It's as though we turn to these addictions because we're bored. There are no catastrophes. There are no plagues. Now there is very little to actually get us and we're living just about forever. The longer we live the more time we have to fill and life is not so exciting. The longer we live the more time we have to fill our lives with all our imperfections. We fill out lives with these addictions to keep us happy in the moment.
Back to the question my friend asked, "How badly do you want it?" How badly do we choose life over our addictions. How badly do we want or need these addictions. More than life?
