I’m convinced that the world would be a much better place if people just had the audacity to love and accept themselves - as is.
In my utopia, there would be no haters, no jealousy, no passive-aggressive crap, no reason to be insecure. There would only be love and encouragement from our fellow man – because we would all be trying to reach our next level – not our neighbor’s.
I'm on the journey with you, but my only competition is me. The most incredible part of this is that it keeps getting better, but you have to start somewhere. A key part of the journey is figuring out who you are...but how do you do that? Well...
Here are 5 tips to get you started:
- Stay alive: Let’s start with the easiest one. All you have to do is keep breathing. Don’t get hit by a bus. Don’t attract the attention of a murderous sociopath. Just go about your daily life, make it home each evening and wake up the next morning. Rinse and repeat. Figuring things out is a long term proposition. At 21, you may know some things about yourself, but you are not fully cooked yet and don’t have the cojones to be in acceptance of them. At 35, you don’t necessarily know everything just yet either, but you’re more apt to tell someone dealing with you to “take it or leave it”.
- Fail: Do it miserably. Do it spectacularly. Do it often and without shame. Sometimes I really think that the American school system has done all of us a disservice by making it such a terrible thing to fail. As a junior overachiever, I certainly know this to be true. The first time I failed an exam I thought my heart was going to seize up and I would die. Well, maybe that was my hope more than my reality, but you get the point. I thought my world was over. It wasn’t. It was the universe telling me that I needed to go in another direction. Your goal is to go through life without ever making a mistake? Really? I suppose there are people like that. You know who they are? Shut-ins. I have failed. On a grand scale. I have had to crawl out my failures, on my knees, on metaphorical glass, swallowing my pride, slowly over a long period of time. I’m still here to tell you about it. It didn’t kill me; it really did make me stronger. I never learned more about myself than I did when I was in the middle of trying to rebuild my life after a failure.
- Look outward: Birds of a feather flock together. You can tell a lot about yourself by the company you keep. Are your friends supportive, positive and love you unconditionally? Or, are you the person always talking your friends out of doing something idiotic or self-destructive? You think that what your friends do doesn’t matter, but if they are in your inner circle, it does. Mediocrity and negativity can sneak up on you – just like being boiled sneaks up on a frog. You don’t throw a live frog into boiling water, it will jump out. The water starts out at room temperature water first, and the heat is slowly increased until the water is brought to a boil. The frog never knew what hit him. The same thing happens to us. At first, we accept a small amount of negativity or foolishness, dismissing it as the norm. Before you know it, your whole world is permeating with it.
- Look inward: Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “A man is what he thinks all day long.” What do you think about? What are the messages you tell yourself about you and your life? Are you kind or harsh? Are you encouraging or hypercritical? Who you are is powered one hundred percent by what you think. If you think life is hard and people are out to get you, they are. If you think you can never get anywhere, you can’t. Your thoughts are the fuel for the action (or non-action), they run the show. You control your thoughts. You decide which information and beliefs will stay and which will go. One guarantee about life is that it’s in a constant state of flux, nothing is permanent – including the stuff we’d like to change. Once we make a decision to do something different, the change starts there.
- Arm wrestle the strongman: Nothing says who you are faster than how you respond to a challenge. Get out of your comfort zone. Skydive. Run with the bulls in Spain. Spend the day in a strange city, all by yourself. Extra points for flying to this city. Life really is an adventure and the world is huge place – explore and experience it!
The end.
Dear Friend,
Thank you for reading Brick Sandwich. I love writing these posts every week. I love getting your feedback and emails. Thank you for being on the journey with me.
Respect & gratitude,
Shayla
P.S. Next week = Christmas = no posts!
