Our Choices
This great big world we're in can be so difficult to navigate. It's not always easy to decipher up from down, right from left, wrong from right. It's never a simple thing knowing if you're making the right decisions. If you are being smart, living up to your potential.
The people in this world only complicate matters. Their energies are intrusive and taxing. It's become a chore figuring out who is good and who is bad. Who is worth the energy to keep around and who isn't. Who is worthy of the love you have to give? Or who might take advantage of it?
It's all just so tricky. Sometimes I wish I could just disappear from it all and merely take a back seat to observe what surrounds me. It's almost as if I feel like I don't have what it takes to participate anymore. Like it's too exhausting trying to figure out what to do or who to be. All I know of myself is that I listen endlessly, I care deeply, I resent change and live for stories, I find value in chaos and merit meaning to the actions I take based on their ultimate contribution to the ongoing story of my life. But I am also susceptible, and I am far too open to be safe in a world like this. I am trusting, I am vulnerable. I wish I could say I know exactly who I am, but there are times when I look at myself and still see a total stranger staring back. It's hard to be familiar with yourself consistently; yet others are so quick to claim they know you and who you are.
But it's even harder to know who you are when you're always letting someone else tell you based on the actions you've taken.
Unfortunately, I'm always quick to accept anothers' analysis and description of who I am; distracted and enthused by the recognition and effort they made to notice and actually see me for once. But that's because I kept myself hidden for such a very long time. And now that I've been exposed and stand in the light where I receive attention, unwanted or wanted, I am still surprised when others notice me so deeply as I notice them. So I let them tell me who I am... I let them prescribe meaning to the actions I've taken and I allow that person to use the choices I've made to define me.
But here's the thing: my actions do not necessarily define me. Sometimes I act out of fear. Of expectation. Of a means to an end. We all do. But the choices I make do not define me just because someone else considers my choices to be the easiest way to explain who I am.
Something I often forget in the wake of everyone telling me who I am is this:
No one else can define you.
Not ever.
The world only knows what you show it. And if they decide to prescribe baseless meaning and pin you down based on the actions you've taken and the choices you've made, it's because those are all they can see to figure you out. But we all have a depth that goes so much farther than that. No one can ever tell you who you are...
So, don't be like me.
Because no matter what they say, you know your own truth;
Don't ever forget that.
The people in this world only complicate matters. Their energies are intrusive and taxing. It's become a chore figuring out who is good and who is bad. Who is worth the energy to keep around and who isn't. Who is worthy of the love you have to give? Or who might take advantage of it?
It's all just so tricky. Sometimes I wish I could just disappear from it all and merely take a back seat to observe what surrounds me. It's almost as if I feel like I don't have what it takes to participate anymore. Like it's too exhausting trying to figure out what to do or who to be. All I know of myself is that I listen endlessly, I care deeply, I resent change and live for stories, I find value in chaos and merit meaning to the actions I take based on their ultimate contribution to the ongoing story of my life. But I am also susceptible, and I am far too open to be safe in a world like this. I am trusting, I am vulnerable. I wish I could say I know exactly who I am, but there are times when I look at myself and still see a total stranger staring back. It's hard to be familiar with yourself consistently; yet others are so quick to claim they know you and who you are.
But it's even harder to know who you are when you're always letting someone else tell you based on the actions you've taken.
Unfortunately, I'm always quick to accept anothers' analysis and description of who I am; distracted and enthused by the recognition and effort they made to notice and actually see me for once. But that's because I kept myself hidden for such a very long time. And now that I've been exposed and stand in the light where I receive attention, unwanted or wanted, I am still surprised when others notice me so deeply as I notice them. So I let them tell me who I am... I let them prescribe meaning to the actions I've taken and I allow that person to use the choices I've made to define me.
But here's the thing: my actions do not necessarily define me. Sometimes I act out of fear. Of expectation. Of a means to an end. We all do. But the choices I make do not define me just because someone else considers my choices to be the easiest way to explain who I am.
Something I often forget in the wake of everyone telling me who I am is this:
No one else can define you.
Not ever.
The world only knows what you show it. And if they decide to prescribe baseless meaning and pin you down based on the actions you've taken and the choices you've made, it's because those are all they can see to figure you out. But we all have a depth that goes so much farther than that. No one can ever tell you who you are...
So, don't be like me.
Because no matter what they say, you know your own truth;
Don't ever forget that.
