How much of your time is spent being an authentic you? How much is spent acting like you feel our culture determines you to be?   How is that identity even established? What difference does it make?  So much of our time is spent developing this persona, which, when examined closely, isn’t very real at all.  We create this imposter ourselves by trying to fit into the roles our culture demands.  Go to college, get married, have a career for thirty years, retire and wait to die.  If it isn’t time to let go of that false now, then it never will be.

False Self

Each day there is an image of myself that I imagine the world sees.  What precisely the idea entails is a mystery. I certainly hope that intelligence, kindness, and caring are a part of the picture.  It is not the substance that concerns me, and it is the inability to ask for help or even appear vulnerable that is bothersome. There are times when people get lost, down, and dangerously sad, but still put on a convincing smile and hide the pain and suffering you are feeling.

The pain and suffering are what they are. Each person has found their own story of this anguish. Although nobody would call pain and suffering good companions,  they can supply a sufficient education and help develop a depth of character that didn’t exist before. Kindness is no longer a word but an action. Understanding someone’s actions comes far before judgment because of my education in this area. Recognizing the false self isn’t who you are but who you think you should be to fit in.  Put all the thoughts of others aside and start to listen to your intuition about what will make you happy.

I Let It Go

It has become time for me to let go of what others think and what I feel about myself because of the fear that others might contemplate my choices, decisions, and thoughts. For the first time in my life, I have to embrace who I am, faults and shortcomings included.

I feel that only by doing this can I move forward, away from the falseness of the past and toward a future that includes an honest reckoning of what I want to accomplish in life.  Time to let go of the expectations that I feel others have built up in my life, embracing the contribution that I can make that matters is only as myself. Not a prefabricated idea of a person that is only an illusion of living.

The True X Marks the Spot

In all of the greatest stories about treasure, there is

Always a map, and at the location of the great treasure, there is a giant X.  There are many twists and turns on the path to get to this place, and often danger exists. I think that my true self is a lot like that. There is a valuable treasure of gold if you can reach the X, but getting there has been a tough road, sometimes fraught with danger and difficulty.  Inside there were more profound struggles than anyone on the outside could know.  I feel like slowly, but surely the X is coming into view for me.

Have you found yours?