Selling Your Soul - Life with Dubowsky

Because you know, selling your soul. It’s a thing.

But buying it back?

If only you could buy it back whole. Undamaged. But you can’t. Buying your soul back – if you are lucky enough to be able to – inevitably, that happens piece by piece.

*If* you’re lucky.

I’ll take two please.

You see, selling your soul can either happen from one (very) poor decision, with ramifications and negative consequences that (generally) spiral out of control from that point on in time. Or you can sell your soul, little by little, day by day. Until there is almost no sense of self left, and you are essentially soul-less. In both scenarios, the concept of time will generally elude you, days will bleed into months, months into years, and eventually years into decades. I am most familiar with the latter, having haggled away small pieces of my soul day after day for the better part of the past two decades …

While you’re in it, it’s hard to see how far you’ve fallen. There is generally a wake-up call, a ‘rock bottom,’ a low point, that gives you pause. Makes you reflect. Then you realize what you used to be and how much you have lost. And however you define it – or however it defines you – you recognize you’ve lost a sense of yourself, your creativity, your enthusiasm for the things you used to love, your enthusiasm for … anything. And once you recognize all of this, you can then officially say you’ve sold your soul. Congratulations!

V2.0 and V1.0 … looking all cute an innocent – don’t let that fool you …

The Buyers

So, who buys souls, anyway? Is there like, a single person – your own little personal angel (devil?) hanging out on your shoulder, who buys a tiny bit of your soul each day? Or is there a team of buyers: someone to buy a little bit of your happiness; someone to buy (and inevitably squash) your dreams; and someone to steal your purpose, motivation, and sense-of-self? Is the person, or team of people, unique to an individual, or do they take what they can and move on to some other amicable host?

The buyers vary, but inevitably fall into one of the following categories:

Buyer #1: Work

Work, for most, is the biggest offender. We spend more time inside of work, than outside of work. Often, more time at work than sleeping. More time at work – with people who will not be there for you when you truly need them, who ultimately (likely) don’t care about you and your well-being, with people who know next-to-nothing about you – than with those who actually do care about you. There is a reason we have work husbands and work wives; we often spend more time with these ‘significant others’ than with our actual significant others.

Let that marinate for a second.

For real.

We choose our real-life partners, our husbands, our wives, the people we spend our free time with; we do not choose our work partners, yet we often spend more waking hours with them, rather than our loved ones.

And for what?

We chase the almighty dollar, the next promotion, the next opportunity for recognition. We need money to pay for … life, right? And we get that money through work. There isn’t any gray area about that – that’s pure black and white.

But that vicious cycle? That pay-to-play? It is instilled in us early on. And every time we choose money over family; every time we choose more hours in the office (for that promotion, right?) over attending our children’s extracurriculars, every time we choose the late-night working session for the opportunity to ‘get ahead’ in the eyes of Corporate America rather than spend a night on the couch (or go out!) with our husbands (or wives), we sell a little bit more of our soul.

Seems okay at first, right? And in fact, the best manipulators will make you believe you have no other choice. But even though you think that everyone is doing anything to get ahead, there are plenty of people with conviction out there. Plenty of people who are okay with putting their job second. And those people, you know what? They do just fine. But the soul suckers, the Harry Potter dementors, they don’t want you to know that. And if you buy in? You’re done. Toast.

Buyer #1 Moral: Beware the manipulators.

Beware the soul-sucking DEMENTORS (evil laugh)

Buyer #2: Obligation

This one can come in many forms. Work can certainly be considered a big obligation, but we’ll assume that to have been covered as Buyer #1, above.

So, what is obligation, exactly? Well, as per our friend Google, obligation is defined as:

The challenge with obligation – in the sense of selling your soul – is that it is primarily self-inflicted, meaning, it is something that we do to ourselves. We’re selling pieces of our soul out there at such a low price, that who could resist? But note, it’s us (yes, it is) that dictate the price, so recognize your value.

Learn to say no. The weight of obligation is tightly tied to the inability to say no. Repeat after me: “No.” If you don’t take this to heart, obligation will piece by piece devour your soul, all the while letting you think that you’re doing what you should be.

If we were to bucket obligation, there might be a bucket associated with parenting, another for relationships (including significant others, friends, etc.), and perhaps another bucket for family. For each bucket, you might be doing something that someone else could be helping you with, but you have politely refused, making more work for yourself, more obligation. Or you could have been coerced into doing something you didn’t want to do in the first place as a result of outside pressures (think Class Mom – when I can hardly organize and feed myself 🤦‍♀️). Obligation can come in many forms, however if you aren’t careful, each can plant a seed of regret, that if left alone, can grow invasively and intertwine with your psyche.

To combat that though, define your expectations, do not let them define you. We are better people to the world, when we are better people to ourselves.

Buyer #2 Moral: Beware the heavy weight of obligation.

Buyer #3: Perception is (Someone’s) Reality

This one – this one right here – is tough to put into words, but can be most succinctly summarized with the quote that:

“You never know what people are going through, and sometimes the people with the biggest smiles are struggling the most, so be kind.“
~Anonymous

Or as V1.0 – who has some social anxieties – would say, “Fake it ’til you make it.”

It boggles my mind that we only know what people choose to let us in on, because there is so much depth to all of us. People only see what we put out to the world. So if it seems like all is well, then all must be well, right? This is what I mean by perception is (someone’s) reality … even if not your own; the double-edged sword cuts in both directions.

Knowing that, can I fault someone for not seeing what I haven’t shown them? (<– Eek, double-negatives 🤯)

Buyer #3 Moral: Beware the false positive.

There Is Hope

You never totally lose your soul; know that there is hope! There is no end, if you decide – whether consciously or unconsciously to sell your soul – you’ll always have a tiny piece of it with you. A tiny seed to … build back what you’ve lost; what may or may not have been stolen from you.

But to start the regrowth, you first have to recognize that you’ve sold your soul to begin with. And that’s no small feat. Isn’t acknowledgment a step in every recovery program?

Given that the act of selling your soul is conceding defeat one small acknowledgment at a time, in order to get it back you’ll need small, consistent wins. Trying to get those teeny tiny wins though, can seem an insurmountable task. But it can be done. Little by little. But it has to be about you. There is no one-size-fits-all, no single amazing recipe. But if you keep you as the focus, it can – and will – happen. And in the meantime: