Need Archives - Blocks of Life

January 3, 2026December 9, 2025 by Pete Wiley

When the Bottom Falls Out—Dealing With the Aftermath

That was it, the final straw. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but then there it was—the arrow into my heart. I have no idea how I’m going to go on. I crumple into a fetal position and lose all control. After a time—could have been an hour, could have been several hours—I come back to the world, but it is not the place I left. Nothing is real; it all exists beyond a curtain of pain. I move through the world, but I’m not of it. I try to reenter my life, but my will is gone, and I collapse again. It’s done. I’m done. I have no idea how I’m going to get through this.

Many of us have been there. A catastrophic event that alters our reality and strips away our capacity for joy. How do you move on from that kind of pain? How do you cross the chasm back to the living? You may just want to die—to end the pain. You may even think about ways this might be done. When tragedy happens, it can feel as if your whole world is gone and nothing that’s left in the world could possibly replace it. Everything, from now on, will be inadequate, unwanted, and painful to bear. Everything that remains is only a reminder of what is gone.

September 27, 2025July 31, 2025 by Pete Wiley

Be Careful What You Wish For

The old story of a genie in a bottle granting three wishes might seem like a dream come true, but it isn’t obvious to most what those wishes might be or if they would make their life or the world better. Wishing for something different than what you have is a risky venture. For many, there are heartaches and challenges that a wish, if granted, might resolve, but then they would be faced with a question of the greater good. They would have to decide whether the wish should have been used for the world at large rather than fixing their own lives. Fundamentally, the idea that a change will make your life better is also questionable. Each of us makes what we can with the life we are given, and of course, more money, the absence of disease, and the removal of heartache would make anyone’s life marginally better. However, dealing with those challenges is part of life and makes us who we are.

May 11, 2024March 18, 2024 by Pete Wiley

Time Apart is Key to Meaningful Time Together

It’s hard to be away from those we love. We may feel longing or loss. We may even think that we aren’t a significant part of the other person’s life—that you’re not on their mind or in their heart anymore. While these feelings are natural, it’s important not to let them diminish the fact that you are your own person—independent and strong. It may not always feel that way, but each of us has an independent person inside us, needing nurturing and care—not from another person, but from ourselves. If you are always with another person, you may rely heavily on that other person for your identity and emotional state, which can lead to an unhealthy reliance on that person. This can become chronic and damaging. Some couples or friends spend a lot of time together in very healthy ways. But if you become emotionally dependent on the other person, that’s a problem.

in Emotions / Open Mind 1 comments

Indifference. Painting of a figure shut off from the world.

May 13, 2023April 6, 2023 by Pete Wiley

Why Should I Care? The Nature of Indifference

When we swat a mosquito, we don’t necessarily have any hostility toward it or its actions; we are indifferent. We are merely getting rid of an annoyance. That may be our attitude toward a great many things in the world—we don’t give them much thought, and we don’t care that much, if at all. For us to care about something, it must have some kind of emotional connection to us. We must have a reason for feeling something, positive or negative, about it and how we interact with it. Sometimes our indifference is affected for a purpose, sometimes it is genuine. Sometimes indifference is intentional, while sometimes it is due to a lack of awareness. Sometimes we are aware, but there is no emotional connection—there is no common frame of reference that would make us care. We can know something or someone well but still be indifferent due to how little they are involved in our lives. And, in the same way that we should be aware of why we have strong emotions about something, we should be aware of when and why we don’t.

in Emotions / Mindful 0 comments

June 25, 2022June 23, 2022 by Pete Wiley

How Urgent is Urgent? Understanding the Pressures in Your Life

For many of us, a disruption can be like a test of how legitimate a sense of urgency is. In our daily routines, busyness and urgency can become a permanent state. You have tasks, you have meetings, people count on you and so you must get the job done—now. If your schedule gets derailed, you may begin to feel overwhelmed and anxious. I’m falling behind! All this is coming due now! You work late nights and weekends. You get it all done, but you somehow still feel behind. That lingering sense of pressure never really goes away. Some feelings of urgency are from specific timelines and due dates. These are necessary aspects of the working world and are needed to coordinate and work collaboratively. However, many of these are a bit arbitrary and are not associated with a specific need to complete a task by a certain time.

in Emotions / Proactive 1 comments