Orlando’s Counseling, Marriage & Family Therapy and Life Coach Professionals

Garrett Fabico

Everyone is struggling. Love and relationship, life and its purpose, depression and a need for direction; the list could continue indefinitely, populated by concerns inherent to existence as a human being. There is not a mature face on Earth that doesn’t know the conflict of dissatisfaction in solitude, disguised with a smile for the sake of sociability or ease. Still, these issues have ways of making us feel alienated from the world, isolated by the secrets we keep locked behind our eyes. It is our response to these feelings though, our methods of coping with uncertainty and fleeting happiness, which really set us apart from one another. Some people seek shelter in religion, some in art and music, some in wealth, some in possessions. But no man can truly say who is rich and who is poor. These things we do to make ourselves feel significant and worthwhile are often only thinly veiled distractions from the constant struggle with our selves that manifests in times of loneliness, despair, or doubt. Sometimes, it seems that truly finding lasting calm is a peace reserved only for the enlightened or the feeble-minded

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Garrett Fabico

I attended Catholic schools for middle and high school and feel immensely grateful and privileged for everything that they exposed me to. It was from those environments that I learned how to recognize right from wrong (and how much more I enjoyed wrong), the importance of appreciation, and that maybe all that matters in life is learning to love your own. Perhaps most dear to the person I am now, though, was the byproduct of a regimented and often hypocritical Catholic education: independent thought. From an early age, I began to think inquisitively about religion. I was bothered most, I think, by my peers’ acceptance (or lack of apparent questioning) of God’s supreme wisdom arbitrarily dispensed by school textbook. Catholic God’s case received further demerit when I learned that even gingerly posed questioning (in middle school and from a particular junior theologian, mind you) would be met with either idiomatic rote or punishment. Though I was enamored by what I saw as the core of the Catholic faith—a selfless and loving lifestyle characterized by the actions you take for others—I was convinced that the people around me calling themselves Catholics did not show that they were Catholic by the way they lived. To me, a lot of these people were merely wearing their religion like a fly pair of shoes—they make a good impression and protect your feet from the hot concrete, but they’re nowhere to be found when there isn’t anyone around to see them.

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Garrett Fabico

One valuable lesson that I have learned in my life is that people often carry burdens that are comfortingly similar to the struggles that other people have survived. Deep and indescribable discontent; disconnectedness with the people around you; love and lovelessness; lack of direction and desire for meaning; these feelings, along with their inverses, are themes of the human condition. But when the moment and the feeling are consuming you, the life you live and the pain you know can feel like something that no soul on Earth has ever borne witness to. The truth is, though, it is far from uncommon to feel hopelessly alone, betrayed, maladjusted, or disconnected. There have been countless numbers of humans before you that have known similar pains, and there will be countless others ahead of you for whom life’s burdens that you have already experienced yet await.

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Garrett Fabico, enjoying his summer vacation

Forgive me, Santa Claus, but summer is the real very best time of year, especially if you’re from Florida. It’s certainly my favorite. I don’t think there is a single person reading this that can’t vividly remember the anticipation on the last day of school before summer break. Elbows pressed against the desktop, butt already lifted off the chair, anxiously waiting for the bell to ring and bring with it the freedom of three months away from the classroom. It’s so exciting as a kid, knowing that there are months of ungraded fun ahead of you: summer camps, family vacations and visits, pool parties with friends. As usual, though, the freedom for a child to waste his or her summer is illusive; the parents ultimately decide what will become of the time, and this makes summer a powerful tool for those that recognize it. Whether as children or adults, we Americans seem to be constantly consumed by our self-perpetuating to-do lists; we often do work that doesn’t satisfy us to reach goals that will never be satisfied, shirking time for ourselves and our families. Summertime is the chance to neglect no more—to focus on new years’ resolutions, learn a new skill, or get in touch with yourself or your children. How will you spend your summer? How will your children spend theirs? Summer is the time to relax, but don’t let its definition deceive you. Summer can be a time of labor, but one of the rare opportunities to labor towards the goals that your busy life may not have room for otherwise. Oftentimes, these goals we don’t have time for are the ones that will truly satisfy and provide us with a deeper sense of relaxation.

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