The only way to get to the place of letting go of what society is pressuring you to want is to go through the pain of realizing that what everyone and everything external to you wants for you no longer feels good, and that you no longer have interest in pursuing it. But, setting that aside, not that you really can (or assuming you are on your real path that is most authentic to who you really are), the real way to get to the place of power that is living in the pursuing/not-pursuing tension is to ultimately be okay with never having that which you are convinced you most want.

...of course, the wonder of it all and the endless tedium of those who drone on and on about ‘untreated depression’, “I’ll be there for you if you’re considering suicide”, and all the other overwrought blather.

Suicide.

I mean, we’ve all thought about it, at one time or another...

Ask yourself one basic question. It’s not the cure-all question, but it gets us in the ballpark. What do you do when you’re at Starbucks, after you’ve ordered, and waiting for your drink? Or, for church-going folk, perhaps while you’re standing in line to exit the sanctuary at the end of service? Or, when you’re standing on the platform waiting for the subway? Or any line anywhere, or anytime people are around? Why?

The real success is in sticking your heart out there and loving and choosing to NOT live in fear. For, again, all of life, every decision boils down to that fundamental choice: fear versus trust. It's not even fear versus love, really. We all feel love and want to express it; it's our natural state. But what keeps us hamstrung, what keeps us from expressing that love is that we fear getting hurt. We fear that we won't be okay, that the pain will be too great, and that we just explode or die from the pain.

These aren't just stories; this was a man's life, a man who was sitting across a table from me drinking his Starbucks, a man who at one point wiped his lips after taking a sip and part of his napkin stuck to his lip when he pulled his hand away, as it might on any of us. A man like any one of us, yet a man who had been to hell and lived it for six years....and a lifetime since.