This
week some big questions about life and humanity have begun to scratch
the surface of my emotions. Sunday morning. Seems like the perfect time
for questioning my being. So I have a serious and personal question to
ask you. What is that one thing in your life that no one knows about.
Or, what is that particular space in your heart that you spend almost
all your energy trying to hide? You don’t need to answer me, answer
yourself.
When you say the word me, you probably feel pretty clear
about what it means. It is one of the things you are clearest on in the
whole world – something you have understood since you were a year old.
You might be working on the question, Who am I?, but what you are
figuring out is the who am part of the question – the I part is obvious.
It’s just you. Easy. But when you stop and actually think about it for a
minute, about what me really boils down to at its core, things start to
get pretty weird. And what we do when that happens – we turn to
labeling. Humans have an innate desire to place labels on everything.
They give us a sence of order and a way of distinguishing things, but we
are too complicated to have simple labels. And you know what? I spent
years believing that others put me in a box. Instead, I did that for
myself just fine. We put ourselves in a career box, a identity box, a
sexuality box, a lifestyle box, a family box and a belief box, and we
can choose to get out of those boxes anytime we wish. No one is holding
us hostage. No one is locking us up. Nobody said it has to be this way.
Except US. And boxes are small. You cannot breathe in a box. So don’t
stay in one. Our being continuously searches for meaning in life and in
seeking it makes itself free as it opens to many possibilities. The
possibility of failure, success, truth, lie, pain, joy, betrayal, trust,
love and rejection. All these experiences are essential in the making
our being to be truly human, to be closer to living a life fulfilled.
See,
we all live behind the propped up versions of ourselves masking the
shame, putting bandaids on the guilt or trying to suficcate the
temptations all by ourselves. The problem, though, is that we weren’t
created to do it all by ourselves. We are created to need each other, to
encourage each other, to love each other. And yes. I know what you are
thinking – it’s terrifying. I am the first one to say that it’s scary to
be completely honest, in fact, most of the times the person on the
other side will reject us, will hurt us, or they are going to make us
want to crawl back into our isolated cave. But please don’t confine
yourself, it will end up hurting you more than benefiting you in the
end. Go outside of your comfort zone. Risk it. That’s when the real
magic occurs. You will always be growing as a person, you will always be
changing. Limiting yourself by living under the label is like getting
caught in quicksand. No matter how much progress you think you are
making, you’re actually sinking down. You have control over your life,
it’s your life after all. And by freeing your me from labels you will
open a whole new world of opportunities for yourself that you wouldn’t
know about otherwise. I know I did. Not for others, but for myself.
I
remember that one quote I once read: “I made it a point for my life to
be a collection of short stories, not a single novel. Many ways to have
many lives, but in none do boxes work.”
I love what is said. Short
stories! To me it’s a gorgeous reminder that I can let myself shine no
matter what my title is or is not. A single novel cannot define me.
Neither can covers of short stories. You cannot put a label after
getting to know just one tiny piece of the whole puzzle. I don’t need to
be put into a box frame. For some time I thought I should, because fear
was running the show. What if I don’t fit in? I better do what everyone
else does. What if they don’t like me? I better conform. What if people
think I am crazy? What if it doesn’t work? What if people say, “who
does she think she is?” I don’t know what to call myself, and
truthfully, it does not matter. I am creating my own place in the world.
I hope you will consider doing the same.
