Start where you don't want to start. Start with Yourself.
I know people haven’t always done right by you. I know you've likely been hurt, heartbroken, lied to, cheated on, abused, all of it torturous on your poor existence. I know you didn't ask for it, or maybe one day you'll realize subconsciously you did. But for this entire blog, I ask that you leave your blame for not only them, but for Yourself, and all the shame that usually accompanies it right here. You’re going to leave all of your blame and shame at this sentence. You won't need it where we're going.
I’ll start by sharing a story of my own, one I’ve been telling myself since childhood.
If you look back on your life and reflect, do it long enough, and you'll realize the past is just a story you've been telling yourself. I’m not certain if I can point out one specific incident that encouraged this narrative, but I know being an only child aided in it. I’ve carried a mindset through most of my life I like to call “The Chosen One” complex. You may know this one, it’s the inherent knowing that you’re somehow more special than everyone else; potentially the most special being there is on Earth. This could easily be confused with sociopathic narcissism, they’re similar, but this term is for those of us who don’t wish to murder and fuck dead bodies. We just can’t help but feel that we’ve been picked for something great in life, that we are destined for it!
But picked for what? That remains the question, doesn’t it? We can never seem to find the exact thing we’ve been chosen to do. We look in careers, we look in relationships, we look in sex, we look in self-help books. We look in alcohol, and cocaine, and mixing uppers and downers. We look in foreign countries and in living lavishly - even when we're broke. We try writing blogs geared towards other people so they can "fix" their lives, when in reality they're just a projection of your own fears and shortcomings (that’s me calling myself out hey-o). We YouTube Alan Watts lectures and read our tarot cards, and we search, and we search, and we search. We feel we’re getting closer, but all of the fame and acclaim seems to be just out of reach. Because that's what we really want, isn't it? To be the most recognized and wealthy for just being.
Let's just call the “The Chosen One” complex what it really is; self-absorption. It's constantly making every scenario and scheme, choice or decision, with you behind it. How will this benefit me? How will this make me look good? How will I get more attention for this? This is easy to do since we are the experiencer of our experiences, and our brains are literally programmed this way. I've lived nearly my whole life in this way. I've had some happy moments, but I've mostly been lost, hurting, and confused. Why isn't my chosen path finding me? What's wrong with me? What have I done to deserve this? And then boom, it hit me. Maybe I only feel this way because I've been thinking this way. You know, this way where I'm at the core of everything... maybe the world doesn't revolve around me, maybe the world doesn't give a fuck about me at all!
*SCREAMS LOUDLY INTO THE ABYSS FOR A WHILE*
That's good to do sometimes. Scream, let it all out. Scream at the Universe long enough and you'll realize it's just echoing your own thoughts and beliefs back at you. The ones you were led to believe, or fought to believe, or killed to believe in. But you can change your mind, and if you're being driven crazy by Yourself, maybe that's a good indicator for "Now's the time!" We've been doing it wrong. Those of us who've been living our lives only concerned with ourselves and our wealth and our success. We've been doing it wrong, and we were lied to.
I always thought being the center of attention was the key, but like with most things in my life, I was fucking wrong.
I believed you had to be the prettiest, and the most successful (societies successful*), the skinniest, and the most sought after being there ever was. Sound familiar? I've wanted this so much in my life that often when I’ve encountered a being who has more of these attributes than me (which news flash is everyday), especially in my immediate circle, I feel jealousy towards them instead of happiness. I play small. I cower to them. Then I self-loathe and self-harm for, oh ya know, decades. I’m the chosen one after all. If I’m not receiving the attention I believe I deserve (for literally no fucking reason) then punish myself I must! Deprive, consume, hate - repeat.
*Societies Successful (bullshit concept) - Be born, hopefully white, hopefully to a rich family or well, you're fucked. Get the expensive education; get the plaque on your wall that will gather more dust than the dust your bones will eventually become. Get the house, get the husband/wife, get the white picket fence, make the babies, drink the alcohol, take the trips, make the money, make the most money, make so much money that it keeps you locked in a private hell that you actually begin to believe without it you'd burst into flames. Get trapped, stay trapped, consume, consume, consume. Then! And this is the most important part, do all of this but never enjoy it or be grateful for any of it. Also, do this to impress your parents who will never love you the way you wish you could’ve been loved.
Love,
Society
I've never been the prettiest, the most successful, or the most sought after human there ever was.
Never all at once or all of the time, anyway. There is always someone who will be more of these things than us. On the other side however, the side we usually don’t bother to consider, there are far more people who have less of these things than us, too. But to be perfectly honest, it doesn’t matter. Comparing ourselves to others is where the danger lies to begin with, for better or worse. We spend so much of our lives focused on how we describe ourselves to one another that we forget what we're supposed to be. Human. And humans help other humans because that's how we survive.
Be a human being, not a human doing. Stop trying to fit some impossible mold that keeps you stuck and miserable. Create your own mold, you have the power to do that - I believe you do. Create a chill, self-loving, forgiving, compassionate, powerful, strong mold that helps oneself be better so they can be better to others. You must uplift yourself in order to uplift others. If you hold yourself down, you will hold others there with you. If someone else's success makes you feel you're being robbed of it, it's time for a reality check, kid. Get clear and get honest about how you're talking to Yourself and you'll quickly learn how you've been treating others. It seems silly to not have known then, but now I do - now it's clear; it’s all about power to or power with - never power over. Thanks Brene Brown for sharing that with me.
“I don’t define myself, I just am.” -Britney Spears
Successful. Pretty. Hot. Rich. Poor. Ugly. Fat. Funny. Dumb. Smart. Powerful. Wrong. Right. Evil. Good. White. Black. Brown. These are all terms we love to call one another, created by our language with which we communicate. But these are just words, on their own they have no real meaning or power. The only thing that gives them power is the person who chooses to do so. Things will have meaning to you, and they should, it helps distract us from the empty void that is life and death, so you must make sure the things that mean something to you are powerful and positive! And when you do this you will align yourself with others who feel the same way, who see what you see.
But we must understand that if we get to do this, everyone else does too. So who then gets to decide who should be called what, and what words have more power, and do you truly believe it’s you who gets to assume this role? Are you truly the rightful person chosen in all of the humans out there who knows exactly what each and every 7.53 billion humans on Earth should be classified as? That’s funny, because I thought so too.
I’m not special, and neither are you, and we are no more chosen than any other human who arrived in a life.
Ideas that we are special and the Universe having our back are damaging in my opinion. If anything, we are all special. We have all been “chosen” to live a life here on Earth. All 7.53 billion of us and counting. There is not one single person who is more chosen than any other person, contrary to what society told you your entire life. The person making your food at McDonald’s is just as human as you are. They have a job and do what they can to get by. How dare we classify them as lesser than us? The homeless man/woman on the street; they were once a child with a family, maybe one that didn’t love them or want them. Maybe they’ve seen abuse that would make you piss yourself. How dare we classify them as lesser than us? The stripper on that pole; maybe she loves her pussy and the power it holds, which is to harbor life and pleasure all the same. Maybe making money with her powerful pussy and body is exactly what she wants to do. How dare you pity her?
We’re just human and we need to start acting like it. But it's okay, we were lied to for a long time. There was a force outside of us who told us to be small, to deny our power, to keep our mouths shut, to live and die quietly under the radar. But those days are ending, and the ancient truth is now coming back to life; that all humans are inherently powerful and deserving of life, love, and abundance.
We have to stop playing small in our lives, in the face of adversity, and realize this is just it. Life is ugly at times, but it’s what we got and it is absolutely 100% our responsibility to make sure we heal our own trauma so we stop cutting into the veins of those closest to us and contracting them with our pain and suffering. It’s about re-learning everything you’ve ever been taught and making that your duty in life, even if there’s never any end in sight.
There is an end in sight, alright. It’s approaching you at a speed you can’t ever know, and it will take you away from anything you ever knew or felt here on Earth. In the space between here and then, you have some work to do, but maybe it's not as daunting as you make it out to be. Maybe at the core of what you believe is wrong with you there’s actually nothing wrong. It’s just how you exist. Or rather, how you tell Yourself you exist. We must work on not denying each other’s pain and suffering, or comparing it to our own.
We are all having a very, real life experience, but we are powerful enough to endure it and leave this planet a little better for those to come. We've really, really fucked up, but today is a new day. It is not the Universe's responsibility to make you believe these things, you have to find a way to believe Yourself. The Universe does not care. It’s too busy existing and creating. And since you are of the Universe, that means you are the Universe. And you have the power to get busy existing and creating, too. It is your very nature, human. And maybe whatever circumstances you were born into is the exact formula for the existence and creation you get to make.
You see, we are tiny Universe’s ourselves.
We are constantly moving, growing, shifting, evolving. Hurling through space. Existing and creating. Living and dying. Within our bodies is a complex interworking of networks, firing and signaling to one another. Keep going. Keep existing. Our entire body is designed to fight to keep us alive. But of course, there are things that go wrong, and there is an expiration to each and every single one of us. Some of our bodies fail us early in life, some later on, and we will never know exactly how or why or when that time is coming for us.
If you want to feel seen in your brief time here, you have to show up as your part. Your part - the one you get to create, not the one society told you to be. And it's important you be this part even if you never get recognized for it. Create yourself exactly the way you wish because now you can. With this knowledge and this truth you can start to change your mind, it just takes work.
I like to think the Universe is a play. It’s the one and only viewing of this play and it’s happening in real time. We are all actors on it's stage, creating and existing. There’s barely anytime for rehearsal, and this is the final act. We are but a glimpse in the entire story. And we are not the leading characters of the play. The stars aren’t even the stars of this play.
The entire play is one grandiose expose of the immense suffering that comes with immense love. It is the story of light and dark as they duel one another for the spotlight, never realizing there is no chosen one. The story itself is the chosen one. And each role is as important as the one supporting it. Each role needs each role to exist - to know their next line. This is the most important story that will ever be told, and you get to be in the show! Whenever you want, there is room on the stage for you to show up. Don't pay for the ticket and watch, be in the greatest show there ever was. This show called life.