Maybe the flip side of men's capacity for perseverance is complacency and acceptance of life being shit. Order over wellbeing. Maybe I trusted lies from authority figures over the experience of my own life. Maybe that's all too grand and I was too cowardly to take charge of my life.

Hard to be ashamed of the past when the present is so much better. But it is strange to have a past that is so different from the present. Does anyone else experience this? If I met the me of the past today, I wish I knew exactly what roadblocks were in my mind to say what I needed to hear the way I needed to hear it. If that makes sense :/