Seeking to Fill the Emptiness

BP 177

A person holding his hands up behind a frosted glass

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My name is Jason, and I am looking for a reason to live.

It’s not like I’m actively suicidal. I’m not. But I do find that life is becoming increasingly hollow for me. Leading my IT team in sales every quarter used to pump me up for months. Now the high only lasts a week. Going on vacation to the Maldives, Aruba, or Dubai would fill my tank for a long time. Now the emotional high after these getaways drains out within days after I get back. Sometimes, I feel like it was all a dream. Maybe I never even left home.

What’s my problem? Is this all there is? Am I the only one who feels this way?

I get a substantial dopamine hit when my favorite NFL team snags a win. I get an amazing rush attending the game and then am riding sky high after the ‘W’ for at least a week. But if my team loses, my emotions are in the toilet. I’m “off” for days, irritable and intolerable. My wife and kids avoid me.

I did find one trick that helps temper my emotional nosedive if my team loses. Every game, I bet $500 against my team. That way, if they win, I still get the emotional high that comes with victory (!), and if they lose, I soothe myself with the emotional high of making some money. Smart, eh? With this arrangement, I never fully lose. I always have a win and get some kind of dopamine hit.

I always must avoid the downer of an emotional crash and burn. If I’m not high, I’m low.

Is this what life is about—highs and lows?

Sex is good, while it lasts. But even that is temporary. My wife knows about my porn habit but turns a blind eye to it since she has her bad habits, too. Porn excites me on demand, but for some reason, I feel emptier after I’m done.

Fleeting pleasures.

Even when my boy plays a basketball game, I get excited and the adrenaline flows. I’m the most vocal parent in the bleachers and cheer him on as if he’s playing in the NBA. He’s in the fifth grade.

I guess I’m a dopamine junkie. Or maybe it’s a cocktail of several different neurotransmitters. All I know is that I love to win and absolutely hate to lose. Or maybe I love to feel good and hate to feel bad.

A person holding a cup

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Caffeine helps me feel good, but I have to drink lots of it. Energy drinks work better. I’m talking four to five a day on top of coffee. But then my heart begins to palpitate, and I have to cut back. I even experience occasional tachycardia. That scares me a bit Maybe I want to live, after all. Even a cigar or a monthly pack of cigarettes gives me a welcome buzz.

But the buzz always goes away.

Where else have I turned to feel the rush? Netflix. Weed. A hookup on the side several times a year. Vodka and other hard alcohol (although that is more of a depressant for me). A new boat. A new cabin. House projects. But . . . you know me by now—it never lasts. I feel like I’m a tank with holes in the bottom–everything drains out eventually and I feel empty, hollow, bored, restless, alone, scared to think that this is all there is.

Does anybody have any answers for me?

I resonate with what Jonathan Safran Foer wrote in Everything is Illuminated: “It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.” At least I think that’s true for me.

Even more, I agree with what Leigh Bardugo wrote in The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic: “You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled – not with all the good food or sunshine in the world. That emptiness cannot be banished, and so some days we wake with the feeling of the wind blowing through, and we must simply endure it . . .”

I’m mid forties now and am beginning to hear my body talk to me. I fear what I will do when my body begins to shout at me that I’m getting old and nearing the end of the road. Will I want to keep living? Or will I want to hang it up, hang me up? I distract myself and do not think about it.

Is this really all there is?

A light coming through a door

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I grew up religious, I guess you could say, going to mass and praying to the saints and confessing to the priest. All that did nothing for me. Why do you think I turned to those other fleeting pleasures? What is a man to do when you feel like you’ve imbibed everything and nothing seems to fill the dang emptiness and illuminate the persistent darkness.

When I go to bed at night and find myself between consciousness and sleep, I feel like there is a door that I must open, a portal that leads to something better. But where is the handle? Where is the way? Where is the truth?

A guy at work gave me a book. In the preface it says exactly how I feel:

31 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,
    for emptiness will be his payment.
32 It will be paid in full before his time,
    and his branch will not be green ~ Job 15:31-32.

Yesterday, I did open an old Bible my mother gave me when I was confirmed. I simply let it fall open and then I stabbed my finger at a verse. It said, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” ~ Proverbs 14:12.

Okay, I get it. I agree. My way is not working. Who will show me why I’m here? I need someone to reach out and help me see what life is about, because it ain’t workin’ for me. If I don’t find something soon, I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll just take refuge in the painkiller I’m taking for my bad knee and the back pain I have as a reminder of my football days that used to give me a rush. Opiates numb me out and make me feel less empty—for a while.

Nothing ever lasts. I guess that’s what this world is about. Nothing lasts. Nothing fills. Nothing heals the holes in the tank. I will be empty forever.

A mask with clouds in the sky

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But at least I’ll try to hide it so no one knows I’m a hollow man behind my carefree facade. I can’t let anyone see me on the inside, after all. A guy can’t be weak, right? But where is the way to joy and life? I fear there is no such path in this nihilistic world.

“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.

11 You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” ~ Psalm 16:5-11

Readers of Designer Therapy for Life, be the person who reaches out with the joy and pleasures of Jesus to those around you who do not know the Way. Without Him, we are all lost, alone, empty and grieving because nothing will fill our souls but Him. Don’t hit them over the head with Jesus, but love them toward Him.

A group of people giving thumbs up

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How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” ~ Romans 10:14,15

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