 So, if you've done a lot of escapism in your life, a lot of time-wasting, procrastination, avoiding facing the music, you've probably been told, don't do that. Stop escaping. Face reality, face your responsibilities, do what you have to do. Basically, good advice, but it's very easy to say, much easier said than done. Of course, you can look at anybody escaping, maybe using self-destructive behaviors, drugs, time-wasting, bad mental loops. We can easily just look at these things and say, well, that's a mistake. You really should be facing reality, making changes to your life to make a better life. And it's true, but I think one reason it's so difficult for it to really get through and really sink in is because it hurts. It hurts to stop escaping. Because the escaping, it's there to escape from pain, from feeling uncomfortable, anxious, from feeling that something's off, that something's wrong, that kind of uncomfortable feeling of just things feeling bad and wrong, things feeling difficult, no end in sight, all those kind of feelings that are relieved temporarily through escapist behaviors. So telling somebody to stop escaping is kind of like somebody who is running away from a bear and you say stop running away from the bear because that's not a good idea. But if you're actually being chased by a bear, then it's very difficult to not run away since you are concerned about being eaten by a bear. Now, maybe I need a better example because I have been told that you should never actually try to run away from a bear because they run faster than horses, so you have no chance of running away from a bear. But the idea is if someone says stop avoiding your problem. If the problem feels like let's say being chewed, having your arm chewed off by a bear, I don't know where this metaphor is going to go to exactly fit the metaphor of escapism. And if you have, please let me know if you have an idea for a metaphor that could work with this idea. But the idea is that it's easy to tell somebody to stop doing an unhealthy thing. But if they're doing that unhealthy thing in order to avoid what to them is very difficult pain, then it's also easy to understand why it would be so difficult to actually put that into practice. I think in any discussion about overcoming escapism, any discussion about self-improvement, changing ways of life, changing perspective, it has to be very clear, we have to be very open with the idea that this is painful and it's not something that anybody really wants to deal with. If it wasn't for the great rewards of going through the pain to improve our lives, there would be no reason to do it. And when you're in the middle of pain, it's not easy to be convinced that, oh it's for your own good, don't worry. When we look at why people are repeating their patterns of behavior and not changing, despite all the logical force pushing them to say, change, even if they can understand in their minds, I need to change. Still, it's difficult to walk across that floor covered in glass, walk across those hot coals that, you know, if you have to do it concoct your imaginary scenario where you have to walk over broken glass or hot coals in order to get to where you need to go. It's still difficult to make yourself face that pain. So I think that this is something to always keep in mind and in order to get through this, in order to move through it, we have to go through a phase where we simply feel bad and I think we have to accept that it is okay. It's okay to feel bad, it's okay to feel pain, it's okay to not be okay. This can be a difficult thing because it seems like the standard way of interacting with people is, okay, how are you, great, how are you doing, okay, fine. When you say how are you, people are not ready for the response of I am in pain. If they do get a response, if you say how are you and somebody says I'm in pain, what would be the reaction? Immediately, reaction is this is an abnormal situation. Something is, something needs to be addressed right now. How can this be improved immediately? It's not just how are you, I'm in pain, oh, well, that's too bad, I'm doing okay. Anyway, carrying on, it's like if something is not okay, if something is bad, it's a natural reaction conversationally, at least to have to address this and fix it. So it can be difficult. So for people that are feeling pain, it then becomes so difficult to actually say that to other people and to say that I'm not okay, I'm in pain because then imagine every social interaction where it's like, hey, how's it going, how are you? And you're like, I'm not okay, I'm in pain. People don't know how to react, they become uncomfortable. They maybe try to solve the situation immediately through some quick solution, whatever they can think of to then take you out of that abnormal state, return you to the normal state of cool, okay, fine, all good, so that the normal interaction can carry on. So people that are feeling pain, instead of going through that in every single conversation and making every single conversation difficult, the easy thing to do is to simply say, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? I'm okay, all right, no complaints. Maybe stay away from the great awesome levels, but just like, okay, fine, not bad, it's all right, and of course no complaints is one that I used to use when somehow I didn't want to complain about anything, even though I wasn't feeling good, but I didn't want to complain. So it becomes difficult to express this feeling and this feeling of pain and discomfort and unhappiness, and instead it becomes once again easier to simply cover it up, pretend that everything's okay, maybe carry on with escapist behaviors just to help things flow more smoothly and just not address the problem. But to address problems, I believe certainly we have to accept what they are. We have to be okay with not being okay. That's the beginning of change, the beginning of making change possible. Through accepting the situation that I'm in now is not okay. I don't have an immediate solution. I don't have an answer. There is nothing that anybody can say that will fix this situation immediately, but simply I am unhappy, I am in pain, and that is how I feel, and that is perfectly okay. Imagine being able to simply say that and for that to be totally okay, that we don't have to try to fix that abnormal situation immediately, we don't have to end it, we don't have to stop all activities in order to address this one particular person's problems, but simply we accept okay. This person is in a bad mental emotional state. Now I can see why for normal conversation, for everyday interaction, that this may not work and it may not be something for everybody. But I think for people that are interested in self-development, in overcoming escapism, in improving their lives, that this can be a very powerful practice. If we simply let ourselves be okay with not being okay, and from that point, change is invited to begin.