The Trap

Since the age of about 21 I made a promise to myself to not fall into the trap that I saw many people around me in.

Lets firstly define what I mean by “the trap”.

One can be trapped in many ways - trapped in a relationship, trapped in a workplace, trapped in a friendship group or trapped in a way of thinking.

Unfortunately, many people who find themselves in these traps have reached a point where it is their reality. Have you ever met people whose whole identity is based on misery or drama? I certainly have. We can easily find ourselves vulnerable to these traps. If one finds himself/herself broke, there is a higher chance of them taking on a low-quality job and falling into the trap of staying in it because it is good enough to survive. If you find yourself lonely or unsupported, there is a likelier chance of getting into an unhealthy relationship. If you spend enough time with negative people, you will most likely become more negative yourself. It is all a trap, and I have fallen victim to basically all of these at some point in my life. Fortunately, only for brief moments.

The promise I made myself not to fall into any of these traps did not come from a place of “I am better than those people”. I am well aware that anyone is vunlerable to it falling into them. I simply recognised from a pretty early stage that I had an opportunity to have a pretty good life. I was and still am blessed with so much freedom: freedom of choice of study, work, partner, friends, location etc etc. And it is not by coincidence, my parents put in the work so those opportunites could present themselves to me.

Relationships, Friendships, Work, and Wellbeing are the factors that contribute the most to the quality of life. They are also the easiest to get wrong or rush into, and for a variety of reasons - societal expectations, comparing one's life to those around them, seeking comfort, or being unsure of one's direction in life.

The Trap is not to be messed with, because traps are easy to get into and hard to get out of.

I am also fully aware that not only can we fall in to the trap, but we can be pushed into it. Most likely each one of us will experience something pretty destabilising in our lifetime that could cause us to trip over and fall right into the depths of the trap.

I have fallen into a bunch of traps, life is full of them. It would be impossible to not fall into a few. Some are a lot deeper than others, but I for sure know that no matter how deep a trap is, there is always a way out.

For example my parents did not have much choice of freedom in their work. In the years surrounding when communism fell, it was not a good time for your average working class person. Thriving was not an option, survival was the only thing on their mind. Living in basements, waiting in long lines to get anything from sugar to petrol. In desperate times people will just do whatever they must to make ends meet. And they were on a mission to survive. As the years went on, things got a little better but once again, it was a question of staying afloat. They lost faith in the Bulgarian governemnent, they realised they are trapped in the system and they need a way out. A decision was made as they did not want us to go throught the same bulsh*t that they had to deal with their whole life. That decision was to move to the UK. An oppourtiny for me and my sister to escape their version of the trap. It was a big risk involving selling properties, leaving all social life behind, starting from the bottom of the pyramid again in their professional lives. That particular trap was very deep, and it took a lot of work to get out of, but with enough dedication, sacrifice and direction they managed to escape.

How does one make the difference between an “easy” and a “hard” decision? How can we know which is the right one?

From my personal experience 80% of the time I know what I should be doing. The part that is difficult is to convince myself to do the thing I know is right, even though it is harder.

I am very good at convincing my self that the easy decision is the right decision. And my brain has an unlimited amount of sneaky tricks to lead me down that path. But the one thing that has helped me consistently is simply just having honest conversations with myself. Moments of silence doing nothing else but being brutally honest to myself, which could come in the form of journalling, meditating or literally speaking out loud and giving myself both sides of the story (I do this only when I am driving).

A simple analagy I go back to is “don’t go shopping when you are hungry”. Because it can apply to almost anything. Getting into a relationship when one is feeling lonely. Expecting life to be okay by chasing an easy fix is never a good idea. The things that bring real value always seem to take the longest and tend to be the hardest.

I will be repeating myself here a little bit but in my opinion it always goes back to this.

Doing the basics of a good life and staying consistent with them.

The best way to avoid getting trapped is not complicated or a mystery. It is by doing the simple things in life that cover our basics and decrease the chances of us being vulnerable to it.

Let's picture a very misty bridge. We know that at some point in the bridge, there is a big hole, but we don't know how close we are to it. Our only clue is that the closer we get, the mistier it becomes, and the more disoriented we become. Now, let's take money, for example (something I have always struggled with). We are at the start of the bridge. Instead of me looking at my bank account every few days, taking notes, making budgets, etc., I just spend a bit here and a bit there without keeping track of it all. Okay, now I've started walking towards the mist. Because I have been spending money without keeping track of it, I am more anxious about checking my bank account, so I ignore my financial situation even more. Before I know it, my car breaks down, my laptop breaks, or something of the sort, and I have to reach deep into my pockets when I realize, "Oh crap, I can't pay for 'X'." So I either get a loan, take any job at my disposal, or just sit and cry and hope some money rains from the sky. At that point, I have fallen into the hole in the bridge. This big situation that I have gotten myself into could have easily been mitigated by just doing some very basic money management.

Quite often, my mind likes to overcomplicate things, such as "I need an elaborate day-to-day budget spending spreadsheet," etc. I think this is an attempt from my monkey brain to make the task difficult enough so I don't even do it. I am telling you guys, my mind is sneaky when it comes to things like this. The truth is that it only takes 5 minutes every few days to see where I stand and to consider what I need to do to stay on the right track.

Excersise, good nutrition, healthy sleep schedule, deep work, quality time with good people.

The answers to living a good life are often frustratingly simplistic. But it's the consistency that's difficult. Although I'm not fully there yet, writing about these "laws" helps me stay consistent with them.

Adios amigos, lets get out of these traps and stay on the right path.

Lots of love,

Koko

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