Category Archives: Loneliness

May 11, 2013

No Mistakes – Original Poem

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

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There are no mistakes in love
It is a conscious choice surrounded by consequence and reaping with thorns in its path

We don’t need to be rescued or found just led in the direction of happiness

I stand alone but never lonely
Lying in the darkness illuminated by the whisper of candlelight, I see promise
Promise gift wrapped in hope

Regrets are created by those that have given up and manifested in song by the broken hearted
Love it a risk with the highest reward
Blessed with kindness and bled with pain

There are no mistakes
There are no bad decisions
There is no turning bad

We often forget the reality because we want to be trapped in the dream

drown2

Another winter is upon us
Cold, wet and surrounded by a storm of thought
Deeper and deeper we slip into the bottom of the ocean
Fighting to breathe

At the final moment when the last breath is near a calm is found
It is the moment of pure enlightenment
A single second when balance is upon us and the future is clear

Leave a comment | posted in Alone, Loneliness, Love, Poem, Poetry, Writing

April 11, 2013

Are we missing the signs of depression on Facebook

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

depression1

“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.” – Elizabeth Wurtzel

Depression is all around us. It does not discriminate by gender, age or lifestyle. In infects us and spreads like a cancer and takes over our lives. For some, the signs are very clear while others hide it very well through their actions or lack of actions. With the world being brought at our finger tips are we missing the clear signs of depression or choosing to turn a blind eye to them?

Facebook is populated by over one-sixth of the human population. It has bridged our worlds and put the idea of voyeurism and stalking into every day activities. There are so many common indicators of depression and so many of us need to be aware and take action to help.

After all, these are our “friends”.

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What are these signs that a person may be suffering from some level of depression?:

  • Aggressive use of language on the social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter)
  • Constant uploading of self portraits.  When someone is constantly putting up pictures of themselves or re-issuing their favorites looking for reinforcement of their “beauty”, that can be a clear indicator
  • Constant quotes about seeking a better place, a better life, a true utopia
  • Constantly checking in to reinforce to their circle how socially active they are
  • Posing a number of “what if” questions or commentary on society
  • Not having any pictures of yourself but friends and family only.  Perhaps a sign of hiding behind unfriendly aging
  • Showing many pictures of drinking or many check ins to bars
  • Late night random thoughts out of character
  • Adding many new friends often.  Needing to be surrounded by strangers and constant attention can be an indicator as well

This is just the tip of the iceberg.   We can list off another ten or fifteen behavioral indicators on Facebook that could be a silent scream for help.

How many of these have you seen?

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How often have you reached out to try and help or even ask if someone needed help?

I am going to lean on a small percentage that have taken on the task of question number two.

I have witnessed these signs and later learned of depression, rehab, loneliness, sadness and rejection from these same people.

Maybe Facebook is the great savior for avoidance of responsibility since it is a virtual tool or maybe we have a higher responsibility to help.

Next time you witness behavior that is unorthodox, it doesn’t hurt to ask and just maybe you might be saving a life.

Leave a comment | posted in depression, Disease, Facebook, help, Loneliness, The Fray

May 9, 2012

Do you ever just feel tired?

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

Do you ever look in the mirror and question whose reflection you are seeing?
You haven’t aged more than a day but you look and feel much older than your years.

Sometimes life just beats you down so hard that it is difficult to mentally overcome all the obstacles being thrown your way. It has a way of spiraling you into a state of depression. One where it is easier to admit defeat than fight your way out of it.

For some it is illness, a damaged relationship, job loss, keeping a family together, a tragedy or a combination of things that piles up on your shoulders that you feel like a thousand pounds of weight bearing down on you.

It is in that moment of darkness that you realign your perceptions of life and begin to ask yourself some questions. How superficial was my life before? All the pet peeves I had were meaningless in respect to the suffering around us? What purpose and meaning do I serve in this life? It is these deep fetching questions that just compound the sense of despair.

Life is hard. I can quote until the cows come home the words of great literary writers and poets, but the words are nothing more than ink on paper. It is when the breaths become harder, the silences more deafening and the loneliness so isolated that reality really sets in.

What then?

You can sift through all your old photo albums and remember your childhood and how you had no responsibility, you were invincible and everything was simple and innocent but those are nothing but mere memories; reflections on past moments. The unknown is in front of you. If life is this hard now, will it get easier? The likelihood is not.

This by no means is a proclamation that suicide is an option or to run away to a remote island somewhere away from all communication. This is the life we lead. We think about our grandparents that went from not having phone or TV to all this. What a remarkable evolution. Maybe we can look back and say times were easier back in the day and now technology is corrupting us, but that is nothing more than a set of excuses.

I don’t know the answer. I don’t even one when you stop being tired. I don’t even have advise at this point on how to overcome. Many are fortunate to have family, friends, values and faith that guide them through what seems overwhelming. Some do not. Maybe clinging on to the few things that are consistent is the right start.

Whatever the answer is, we are listening. I guess in the end, whether you are friend, foe or stranger, if you can help someone, in a way you are helping yourself by given yourself a sense of purpose and achievement in making another life better, even for a moment.

Leave a comment | posted in depression, Despair, isolulation, Life, Loneliness, weary

May 6, 2012

I Broke Up with Facebook…And I’m doing ok

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

It has been almost two weeks since I broke up with Facebook.
I have not liked, shared, checked-in or uploaded anything and it feels quite refreshing.

How ironic, on the cusp of perhaps the biggest IPO in history that will make a few key individuals billionaires within minutes, I have chosen to break up.

This is by no means finite. I downloaded my file to a zip and I can re-activate at any time. Please don’t shed any tears.

Before we move forward, there are several key points that need to be made:

1. I do much of my professional duties in the Social Media space.
2. I manage a successful blog and chose to walk away from the biggest social network in the world and currently the #2 ranked website in the world (Alexa.com Ranking of Facebook)). Yet there has been no significant decrease in traffic.
3. Since deactivation which removes all comments, likes and administrator duties, only 4 of my 1075 even noticed
4. Without the ability to share every activity of my life with pictures, video and commentary, I do not feel any less valued by society.

Now back to the story.

A recent study came out indicating that Facebook is increasing levels of loneliness and narcissism in people. Duh! A need for instant affirmation is critical with status updates, pictures, videos, comments, likes and shares. For those that stay at home and scroll down on all their friends and contacts out and about doing fun and exciting things could create a sense of loneliness and lack of societal value. That just saved thousands of dollars and labor hours. I should do more of these studies.

Why now do we feel we need instant gratification for each and every move of our lives? Is it society that has always been this way and now we have a tool to feed on these actions or has this tool contributed to the evolution of a new way of life? Interesting coffee time discussion if you ask me.

Whether it is an IPad, laptop or mobile device, millions of people around the globe are creating their own small version of The Truman Show. We are all open for broadcast 24/7 whether anyone is watching or not. Who is our target audience? Is it our friends, our family or ourselves? Maybe in a way, we need to document the timeline of our life to validate its importance to ourselves. These visual journals may create the perception of a higher sense of worth.

Facebook has given us the tool to bring us to the highest levels of happiness and depression almost simultaneously.

Divorce, Stalking, Crime – Facebook Style

Has Facebook become the new face of divorce? Not necessarily marriage divorce alone but relationship divorce. How many relationships are not official until it says so on Facebook. How many break ups happen because your significant other was seen doing something inappropriate or became friends with an attractive person.

Transition into the new face of stalking? Oh stalking. Now you can check up on your friends, your significant other, a potential candidate, a potential vendor, contractors or anyone. Not only does your profile reveal so much but your pictures, likes, comments are all becoming more and more public. All of this allows us to create (in our minds) a picture of who we think you are. If I see you curse on a comment or show what I feel is an inappropriate picture, will I not hire you? If you believe in something I am against, will I not become friends with you? Hmmmm interesting.

Has anything thought through the idea of crime. Take for a moment to think about a family going to Orlando, Florida for a week. They send pictures from the road, laughing with Mickey, dancing at night and all is peachy in the world. Now that means there is a likelihood the house is vacant. Is it that hard to use the White Pages, find an address and burglarize the house? I think not.

Situation #2, take a jaded ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend, old boss or criminal that you put away with your witness testimony. If you continue to check in everywhere you go, you take the mystery away from someone who is trying to hurt you to find you.

None of this is new.
Safety and security concerns has come under constant scrutiny on Facebook for years but it is not stopping millions from becoming part of this global domination community.

Facebook is more than a social network
It is more than a business model
It is more than a community sharing device.
It is shaping a world that is weak to cultural acceptance
We all want to belong and what better place than the biggest virtual network in the world.

When we look back 50 years from now and there are more humanoids than humans, this could have been the catalyst that started us on the road to disconnection. It could be the moment that changed the face of Earth.

I have often asked myself, when did things start to go wrong…2003

Now as I begin week three single from Facebook, I can say the following things:

1. I have not thought being on the site.
2. It is very refreshing not having your work, lifestyle and relationships under constant radar.
3. It has freed up more time to live.
4. It’s only a social network. There are many many many more including but not limited to: Our Bucket List, Pinterest,
LinkedIn, Twitter, Deviant Art, Live Journal and Google+,

Whether you stay on Facebook or not is a personal choice and this article is not meant to sway you either way. Just make sure at the end of the day, you are happy.

3 comments | posted in break up, Culture, Deactivate, Facebook, Loneliness, narcissism, Society

May 1, 2012

Lonely – Original Poem

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

The sun rises on another day and warms my body as I lie in the desert alone
No sounds of birds
No call of the wild
No food to fill by empty belly
No water to drench my dehydrated soul

Alone I rest following the movement of sky as it journeys east to west
My destiny is worn its welcome and now it sits at the train station awaiting a vision of steam that will never arrive

I am stranded
Learning how to walk again but crippled in mental disease

I thought the dawn of a new day would refresh these feelings of alienation
I dreamed of a better tomorrow filled with the sugar drops of yesterday’s memories

I am in so much pain but a drop of blood not to be spilled

How do we measure life?
In moments?
In accomplishments?
In a first kiss or a last breath?

Under this roof, I am homeless. I am a vagrant in a world of impostors
With this money, I am poor. Without a voice to hold my fragile mind at ease, I am without value, without sanity, without reason, without purpose

The sun turns to clouds, clouds to rain, rain to awareness
Showering us with a warm rainfall of reminders of the realization of life

I close my eyes and learn to fly
To fly away into the night’s sky and toward the welcoming comfort of the universe’s mysteries

Leave a comment | posted in alienation, Loneliness, Lonely, Pain, Poem, Poetry, Recruiterpoet, Writing

April 28, 2012

Remember – Original Poem

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

My will is gone but not forgotten
Like a runaway train, I am off the tracks and out of control
My soul is homeless; living on the streets searching for new meaning

Each sunrise deteriorates the spirit

Under the stars, the night protects this fragile pawn naked to a world controlled by neglect and tortured by hatred

Ignite a flame
Rekindle the light that awakened fondness
Remember the hugs
Remember the smiles
Remember the late night talks and always a clear conscious when your head hits the pillow

The flame burns not for today but yesterday
It cannot return to the restfulness it once knew but be comforted by the thoughts represented by this light

Leave a comment | posted in Life, Loneliness, Memories, Poem, Poetry, Recruiterpoet, Reflection, Writing

July 9, 2011

The Nothing Man see Everything…

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

The Nothing Man is all around.
He is sitting on the bench in the park.
He is under a tree contemplating the rebirth of a life left behind in the trenches of shadows suffocated by the air that we breathe.
He is in your dreams.
He is standing at the station watching the trains go by.
He is the man you are, the man you want to be and the man you could have been.

He let it all go to only find the real truth was the bond between him and her.

Love lost is a tragedy because love is the only truth. It is the essence of existence and the answer to the questions that stand before us every day we inhabit this earth.
We are born alone and die alone, but the only gift we can receive is love.

The Nothing Man knows that and willingly lost the only explanation of meaning.
He knows for he has lost.
He is left behind.
Falling into the sea, he tries to catch himself before he drowns.
Can he recapture that shared feeling that brings the energy of two into one powerful act of suggestion.

He is the Nothing Man, but knows all.
He knows the impulse, the chase, the bond and the release.
He has seen the full spectrum of seed to flower and crushed it in an act of selfishness.

Why would the Nothing Man destroy the only thing that kept him alive?
He needed to bleed to feel the pain bottled up inside.

He is the Nothing Man.
He is alone in body and mind, but forever bonded in spirit.
He needs to capture once again before the blood drips to the dirt and buries itself forever in the ground.

We pray for Nothing Man for he is within all of us. He provides us guidance and gives us shelter in the loneliest hour. He is the man in the mirror reminding us that true love is a gift. One to be cherished and held like a fragile egg. Do not search; for it will find you. Do not hold on too tight; for it will break.

Always, always cherish it every moment that you share a breath.

Leave a comment | posted in Alone, Gift, Loneliness, Love, Love Lost, Nothing Man, Pearl Jam, Romance, Tragedy

July 4, 2011

Goodbye World…A Suicide Note to Everyone

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

There is no reason to go on with life.

We transition from innocence in youth to a world overrun by fear and tragedy.
We embrace the media’s attempt to exploit misery and death to numb the pain we feel for our own lives.

Throughout life, we are tossed cliche after cliche dictating how “life is hard”, “it helps us grow stronger”, “we have to suffer to find greater success” but why do we have to suffer to find happiness? After all, we have but one life and a short time period to live it. Even during that duration, we all run the risk of disease, disability, and with only a brief moment in time, the risk of instantaneous death. That is too much for any intelligent person to bear. We are cursed and blessed all at the moment of creation. We are born into the most intelligent species with intellect and emotion rolled into our developing brain.

Is this a curse because as we learn and grow, we question life, death, religion and faith in a higher power? Mortality is a wonderful and mysterious idea. It blesses us with the gift of life showering us with beauty, love, tranquility and peace but also gives the power to destroy and corrupts us with temptation, greed, gluttony and other sinful acts of emotional and physical aggression.

We find ourselves back at the center of a neutral debate.

Often when put on the brink of determining life or death, it is an action that prompts this internal debate. It can be losing a loved one, experiencing a catastrophic event, learning of an illness, or finding yourself at a low point in your life. It is then that simplicity rears its head and provides an easy way out. Whether there is an afterlife or not, it is the easy solution. For me…only.

The curse of intellect is that all of us bear the pain of the death of others while the soul less body lay at peace while we all morn. That doesn’t seem fair, so in a way, suicide is a very selfish solution.

That certainly adds another factor to this decision. Do I understand the reprecussions this will have on others who are a part of my life, or do I just not care given that I will be void of life and all the emotional pain attached to it.

In fairness to myself and others, have I looked at all the other possibilities?

Of course not, since life is an unpredictable act of chance. We are given certain pawns (money, social status, jobs, friends, family) that helps shape our decisions, but clearly an impossibility to deny the possibility of life improving as we move toward the future.

There we go, over-thinking a life altering decision. Just as I consciously talked about the human mind, I am verbally questioning the entire thought of suicide. In a jury, a decision must be unanimous, why shouldn’t be use that calculated logic toward a decision like this? That is an excellent thought, but the difference between a jury and a suicide is that I determine my future and the action I will take to achieve that end. Maybe I need to talk this through to people I trust so that all options are weighed. Clearly, anyone that cares about me will say “don’t kill yourself”. Hopefully, all will. That certainly cannot help but it does open the door of debate.

I have no intention of committing suicide, nor has the thought even breached my mind, but I like millions throughout the world suffer from depression, loneliness, sorrow, poverty, illness and feelings of isolation. The truth is, we need that in our lives. The complexity of the human mind is developed by the range of emotions that create a melting pot. It is this melting pot that creates the unconscious feelings we address every day. Whether it is our dreams, love at first site, deep sorrow for a loss, exhilaration from winning a race, the joy of seeing a loved one who was gone for a long time, or the peace you find in a sunset over the ocean blue, we need all of the collective energy of our thoughts to give us the pure euphoria that is life.

This letter is not reaching out to just those that have thought about the easy way out, but to those that may think about it in the future. In a way, this is not an attempt to talk you out of it, but to bring awareness to the completeness of such a decision. When you think about the gift of life, create a mental bag and put everything in it that is truly important to you. Include the good and bad because without bad, you wouldn’t know good. You will be surprised how heavy that bag is.

When you think there is such a burden on you that you cannot move forward, understand that the burden is everything that encompasses your life, darkness, light, loneliness, together, sadness and happiness.

Think twice….

12 comments | posted in Death, depression, Family, Friends, Life, Loneliness, Love, suicide

April 15, 2011

A Soul of Misfortune – Original Poem

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

Running, running, running from the ghosts of her past
Demons follow her patterns of sleep, imbedding thoughts of insanity and doubt
Love is but a corrupt diamond chiseled from the blood of slaves

Without direction, there is no home
Without hope, lust for loneliness is the only option

In the dark path of a future drenched in fear, she can only cry on the shoulders of a man no longer by her side
She cannot hold the future she feels she needs

Desire is disguised in the post apocalypse of a heart emptied in the barren reservoir

Dry and gasping for air she is still
Afraid to feel
Afraid to love
Afraid to be held by the promise of a new sunrise

Can the end be so near for such a young soul?
A soul born into misfortune; guided into the direction of darkness

It is a tale without a future; without a past; without forgiveness

With one final call, from the horizon of a sun tipped mountaintop, a whisper is heard

Leave a comment | posted in Loneliness, Unrequited Love

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