Oh, when it rains it pours, right? First thing’s first, BREATHE! Second, scream (that may include cursing if it fits your vocabulary). Last, close your eyes for about 5 seconds then open them back up. Done it? Good. Now we can start.
There has been an excess lately of making compromises and sacrifices that not only did I not want to make, but also felt that I shouldn’t have to choose between. I became tired, exhausted and beat up. It seemed as though every time I recovered, another something would occur that would drag me back down to the depths I worked so hard to escape. It felt, once again, that my life was destined to be like this all the time. Just when I found what made me happy, I was told to give it up. When I thought I was content again, I would feel unsettled. It wasn’t a roller coaster, it was falling over a cliff and I didn’t have the energy nor the ability to zero in on what exactly I was experiencing.
I continued to hear about boundaries and limits, and firmly believed that this is what my life had resorted to. No longer were things fun, they were escapes. Happiness felt like a far-fetched idea for the naive and oblivious. I was lost. Now, for a person who spends and has spent an incredible amount of time trying to find myself, this was distressing. Being lost in a familiar place is unsettling and exponentially troubling the longer it goes on. Where was I?
Exactly where I needed to be, and later found out it was where I wanted to be.
As the pieces of me fell out of the safe places I had previously put them, I was reminded time and time again of parts of my Self that had remained dormant. They were collecting dust, hiding behind a box or under a blanket of security. And like an earthquake that rattles the cabinets holding the fine china and silver, it shook my world at the core. What I found in the aftermath were parts of myself that I had long forgotten, partially because of the pain and loss associated with it, but also because I had not felt I was worthy of it yet. I had created a guise for my actions, and while moving in the proper direction, continued to be misguided by boundaries I had created in an effort to keep me on track. These boundaries however created a limitation and when it comes to life, limitations are akin to being in a mental prison. I had become a slave of other people’s expectations, locked and bonded by falsities that resulted from ignoring my own happiness. I was no longer achieving for myself. I was not myself, my true Self.
For years I have rejected what has come easily to me, it was too easy. I draped the notion that the best things in life were free, that anything worth having wasn’t easy to get and that if something came easily to me, that I should avoid it because it came easily. Now, I’ve spoken a lot about boundaries and the resulting limitations, and the reason for this is because I believe it to be a fundamental issue when involving our true selves. When we were children we are told to reach for the stars, or learn to go beyond them. The sky is the limit! Dream! As we get older, these ideas are squashed, compressed and marketed to us as a piece of fiction or the mindless quandaries of a wandering mind. That’s just not reality! Get real! Act like an adult! What this means is that as we get older, we are to believe that pure happiness must be attained through sacrifice and compromise. But why?
There is NO answer for this, it is rhetorical because its purely based on your own perspective.
It took the barn being thrown for me to realize the parts of my Self that not only help me function, but are the driving forces behind what allows me to continue to better myself. It should not take an earthquake for me to appreciate and use the fine china I have in my cupboard. There is strength in certainty, hope in convictions and beauty in nothing. Find the dreams in the space that lies between your reality but don’t just stare, grab hold of it. Do not be down when inevitability strikes, know who you are and wade through the muck with your head above water. There is never any time but there is always space, close the gap so you don’t have to wait for right to happen because then it’ll feel wrong. Departures are always nearing and we’re standing on a moving walkway, going backwards gets you nowhere and moving forward reminds you that you’re not ready to leave, sometimes being comfortable means it’s the exact speed you should be moving.
Things I NOW tell myself:
- I will not be restricted in what is perceived to be the standard.
- I will create goals that sit beyond the stars because it will be the only way I can explore the far reaches of my happiness.
- I will never run or chase, but I will move towards with increased speed.
- I will be better, for the sake of others and myself.
- I will not stand down in the face of adversity
- I will support and ensure, but not at the cost of myself
- I will embrace and welcome change, even if it’s drastic
- I will keep an open mind, especially around those with narrow vision
- I will NEVER persecute myself to make another feel better about themselves
- I will sacrifice compromise but never compromise with sacrifice.
- Most of all, I will never stop dreaming or being hopeful.
From the outside, I’m sure it looks weird, that I’m giving up the chase. But that’s the key, I’m chasing. That I’m settling even though it’s the right fit. From my perspective, I’ve finally arrived. In mathematics, the absolute value is the non-negative value of a variable without regard to its sign, thus whether the sign is positive or negative, it’s answer is non-negative. Another way to look at it is it’s the distance to zero and regardless of where it lies on the number line, in the positive or negative, the absolute value will always be non-negative. In this simile, the zero is like our center or balance of self and the values are a simplified version of our state of mind. Whether or not we are in a negative space or positive, the absolute value to return to our center will always be non-negative. It will be non-negative because our center has no negative, it just is (or isn’t depending on your perspective). Our selves exist in the infinite, which is a bit ironic seeing as though infinity does not truly exist, but what this should say is that the absolute value of our Self is boundless, limitless and always non-negative. I believe we create restrictions on our self as a means to protect the zero in us. That we ignore the zero, accept it as nothing, not knowing that is has value and that it is, in fact, everything because it is our center. We allow limitations because “what if” allows quicker detachment. We do not dream of limits and boundaries, we dream of nothing. We dream of zero. We dream within infinite absolute values where impossibility is only a speed bump, because if we can achieve the impossible, then greatness is in our hands.
Now, breathe. Close your eyes and say this: I am the best Me and will only be better because I dream endlessly.
The Impertinent Truth 