There was never a moment where I felt like I could climb out of this. No big “ah-ha” moment. Never — and I do mean ever — did I think “I got this.”
That is the part nobody tells you about how to rebuild your life. You keep waiting for the lightning bolt, the morning you wake up different, the scene where the music swells. It doesn’t come. Day after day was just focused on making the smallest of improvements on personal habits.
How to rebuild your life: tiny bricks
Tiny improvements to my habits in the beginning. Where can I squeeze in a workout consistently? How can I make a slightly better decision around food choices? Let’s optimize one snack for performance instead of taste. Oh — what if I attempted to rewire how I thought about food as fuel instead of entertainment? I’ve always struggled with food and diet, so making good choices can be hard. Reading — where can I find a few minutes a day to read a bit more?
These tiny choices helped me, slowly, like mini bricks of positive decision making that helped me rebuild.
Go forward slowly
I am not a patient person by nature, and this methodical habit building is slow going, for sure. So I have to constantly battle with myself that it’s okay that I am on the right track instead of trying to “fix” everything at once.
Be useful
When I was at Lompoc I felt so utterly helpless that I focused on being useful. If I could be useful for others, then I would be worth something. So I aimed at serving wherever I could.
Please understand that I didn’t really do this out of the good of my heart. I wish I could say that I did. I didn’t. I am not that good. What I am is a man filled to the brim with flaws. By helping other people I felt a tiny bit better. Like somehow, someway, I was making someone else’s life better, even by the tiniest margin.
So I started helping men who couldn’t read or write. I would read the letters that families sent them. Understand that these letters are a lifeline to those in prison. They are rays of pure joy that men clasp onto. It started small — I would dictate a letter or two for one person to respond to his family. It was a small thing, but it felt good.
What the consistency actually bought
Over many months, more and more people trusted me. The consistency of working out showed me that I had the discipline needed to get better at whatever I set my mind to. It showed others that I was determined and disciplined.
Upon reflection, there is such a valuable lesson here. When people see with their own eyes another person doing something hard over a long period of time, even if they don’t like that person, they respect them.
I had to reframe my worldview. I had to fully surrender to the fact that I was completely helpless to this world. Then I could refocus on just the smallest things I could do: my workouts, my diet (kinda), and how useful I could be to others.
Pushing my body by doing long, grueling workouts every single day helped my mental health and my sleep. But the real benefit was that quiet respect. Quiet respect is what men — real men — used to have in this world.
If you are waiting for the sign that you can climb out, stop waiting. There isn’t one. There’s just tomorrow’s workout, tomorrow’s better snack, tomorrow’s few minutes of reading, and tomorrow’s small usefulness to somebody else. That is how to rebuild your life. One tiny brick at a time.
Next chapter: The Mentors I Found in Books →