Cycles of Our Lives

Cycles. Systems. Routines we create for ourselves. Cycles to follow so that we don’t have to look up and face the inequities that surround us. We keep our heads down and our lives going. Rise, eat, shower, work, eat, sleep. We hope that by creating a cycle for ourselves, a routine which we can follow, we can ignore all the horrible things that are spinning around us. But the truth is, the center of the hurricane is the calmest. While we stare at our computer screens, waiting till the alarm rings to go eat dinner, thousands of other people struggle because they don’t have the system in place that we are so fortunate to have. But just like us, they too, are trapped in cycles, only, far worse than the ones we have given in to. While we’re stuck in the cycle of delusion, others are stuck in the cycle of addiction. The cycle of poverty. Cycles, that like ours, endlessly repeat. Except each time these recur, their hope and light dims down just a little. Every time they reach for that bottle of beer, or that tiny, white pill, their grip on reality and a new life slips just a little. This cycle they create for themselves is their way of coping with whatever they’re going through. But by the time they realize that this pattern they have created will do nothing to save them, it’s too late. The cycle they succumbed to has already put them into thousands of dollars of debt, got them evicted from their homes, and made them lose everything they once loved. So then we wonder why these people get stuck in these cycles. How hypocritical of us. We pass every homeless person in San Francisco, shaking our heads and pretending we understand, when we really don’t. The cycle we’re in is to ignore the cycle they’re in. But slowly, just like they lose themselves in their patterns, we lose ourselves too. We bury ourselves with schedules and alarms in order to hide when reality rears its scarred face. Because the more you say you’re busy, the better an excuse you have to not help the people in front of you. So tell me. Are you going to stay trapped in this cycle for the rest of your life, or are you going to help others break out of theirs? The choice is yours.