I was excited at first.
But this moment was just a chain reaction to the one before it. The more important moment.
…
I had just gotten another text from my ex. A cat meme. Something that she and I found funny because of her feline companion Toulouse, who was the closest thing to a dog with feline DNA.
The text itself had a complicated set of emotions. The warm comfort of connection and intimacy, and at the same time a feeling of bitterness and frustration.
You see Reader…
It was me who ended our relationship in the beginning. I did it out of a desperate need to cover my insecurities and run from commitment. But after playing the game back and forth for roughly six months, she unanimously decided that it had to end. She couldn’t play my games anymore.
She had to move on.
Which left me that much more aware of the well-deserved heartbreak.
But…
At the time of this particular text message, she had been dating someone else for months. A man I knew. A man from her past. A man far better equipped for her than I was.
I hated that of course. I hated him.
But only because I was the one unchosen.
…
So, what was this?
Why did she continue to give me her attention?
I realized that day, in that moment, blinded by my own need for comfort and love, she was doing it out of pity. She knew I was hurt. And she was still maintaining contact to ease my pain…and maybe even to hold to something she needed, whatever that was.
And that was the day I stopped texting her.
Forever.
…
I was released…
I had to come to terms with what ‘the end’ meant and started to ask myself, “Why not more?”
And with a few months slowly coming back to life, I had an epiphany.
I didn’t know who I was.
I don’t think I ever knew.
And this was the chance for me to find that person.
It was exciting.
At that moment, I knew that my world could be anything. I had spent all of my twenties trying to conform, and after being broken into pieces, I could put those same pieces back together in a form that made far more sense.
…
I think we’re all excited when our minds discover a new idea about ourselves. And in curiosity and anticipation, we follow that discovery. We think there’s something new, something significant, something novel in which the very pull of our soul has finally gotten our attention.
Here’s the thing though.
What you are is what you know.
And what you don’t know may be who you really are, but how could you know if what is in the unknown is actually you?
How could the real you feel right if you don’t know what it means to feel the real you in the first place?
This is the journey of the most courageous of us.
It’s a courage, an ability that we all have, but something so many people ignore. Because it’s frustrating, deep, discombobulating, scary, and very hard to decipher.
There are 1000 things that you could be.
And if what you are now is not it, how far will you go, how many things will you try, in order to find the most authentic one?
…
The work itself means:
- becoming less of what you are to replace it with more of what you’re after. Indisputable sacrifice.
- socially acting more honestly and skeptical because you’ve only ever acted in ways that get you validation and friendship. Indifference and exile.
- trying 100 new ideas, lifestyles, and works, most of which will fail to stick, leaving you to doubt what you’re doing. Success by failure.
- becoming more intentional and no longer afraid of what others think. Authenticity.
The thing is, most of us start out living the way we’re expected to; by our family and friends and teachers.
But, conformity is the killer of authenticity.
And authenticity means living 100 percent as yourself. No filter, no self-suppression, no censoring yourself, and no more living conditioned to social expectations.
And sometimes it takes decades to do this right.
So…
Who are you to other people?
And
Are you yourself in front of them?
If not….
Is it keeping you from seeking out, finding, and living who you should be?
Truth and Love, Reader.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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Photo credit: Jason Rosewell on Unsplash