Let me ask you a quick question.
Who is it that you think you are?
Do you have an image of yourself that you drew in a sketchbook somewhere long ago, or have you just been the paint splattered on the canvas by the artist not sure of where to go?
Asking yourself who or what you are is a very hard thing to do. Sometimes I lie in the corner of my room on the fringe of my mattress, and I wonder what it is I have gotten myself into, who it is that I’ve become. I used to have these ideas of myself that I thought I would be able to uphold and maintain, but in reality, i was just building cages around myself, not knowing I could easily get out. All of my life, I’ve tricked myself into thinking that I was the one in control of the making of myself, when in reality, I’m only everything I was programmed to be. I was hardwired to love and like certain things, and it was only a matter of discovering those things for me to know I truly liked them. I felt like I had grown a likeness to those things on my own, by my own will, when in reality, they’ve been there all along.
It’s almost depressing thinking that you didn’t make who you were. You just simply like the things you do because the appeal to something within you that you had no part in choosing.
But then there’s this moment, a moment for all moments in which we have to take hold of who we are. There’s this moment in which you realize you can’t decide who you are, but you sure as hell can decide what you are. Are you a liar, a coward, a man afraid of failure? Are you an honest man, a man of courage, a man set on chasing his dreams and floating amongst the stars?
You can’t change who you are, but by God you can change what you do with who you are.
There is a time where you sit down and evaluate everything you’ve become and reminisce on what it was that you wanted to be. You wonder if it gets better, if you are enough for yourself. Are you satisfied? Or do you want more? More of you, more of everything you think you could’ve been if you had only given yourself the chance. The world tells you that you have to either love who you are or chase the image of yourself that you can love and refuse to love yourself until you are that image.
Well that’s bullshit.
Look deep down inside of you. Think of all the music you like, the movies, the games, the jokes and the people. Bask in how they make you happy and how they make you feel alive. You love them don’t you? All the things that leave you with a smile from cheek to cheek? Newsflash: they are a part of you. They are everything you are, so love not only the things that make you happy, love yourself. I understand we don’t all look like we would want, talk like we want, walk like we want, but we need to learn to love the things we can’t control because they are the reasons why we love what we love. If it wasn’t for the parts of us that wish we could change, happiness would never have been found in the unique jokes and people we’ve come to love. We would all be the same, and art and passion could never exist.
Now stand back and look at your life. There are things you want to do, so much you want to accomplish but are so unsure that you can fulfill your wishes. If you want to cut down on your weight, change your look, get your dream job, complete a bucket list: feel free to do it. Do everything in your power to get what you want. But before you go conquering planet earth, learn to love the core of you, the part of you that has never changed, always constant like the stars in the sky or the beauty of the rose. Don’t base your happiness on the things that can change so easily, the things in your life that fluctuate so quickly.
Love yourself enough to stay true to who you were born to be. Being what you truly want to be will only be a result of who you are. Being who you were born to be and being what you want go hand in hand. You are the constant and your dreams are the variables. Dreams come and go but you will always stay the same. The X & Y of the equation of life. The equation of you.
Love yourself.
Embrace your flaws.
Be what you want, it’s only who you are.
to those who are listening.
-Gideon Reyes
gideonreyesforever 