I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test
(thanks Mr. Bowie)
I am not who I am supposed to be. I know this in the very core of my being. When I ask myself who I am, I get a distinct answer that I know is right.
How does one change their life? Who they are? Know you are someone who you are not today, but don't know how to get there?
Those are a lot of the questions I have been dwelling on lately. I seem to have been at a crossroads looking this way and that trying to figure out which way I am supposed to go, or not rather which way, but actually setting foot on it. Starting the journey. It is decidingly frustrating for me, as I am usually good a deciding a course of action and executing.
When I was younger, people used to remark on my patience and tenacity. I seem to have misplaced those somewhere along the way. I can't seem to summon either up now to help me change. There are temporary respites when I can manage to focus on what is important but those never last for more than a few days at most. A couple of days on average. It is as if I know where I am supposed to go, but I can't bring myself to go there. Perhaps it is fear.
A wise man once told me that all people suffer from at least 1 of 12 fears. I can't remember them all now but I am sure that I suffer from more than 1. Most of the important decisions I make, I make either out of fear or based on fear. He also told me that my greatest challenge in life is that I am not only my own worst enemy, but also my own worse critic. Lately, I have been trying to assure that fear has no hold on me, or that I go into something with an open mind. I also am conscious of being to hard on myself, or actually feeling like a failure. It goes a long way to making things better, but even this is not making me make any forward motion.
How does one break the cycle of living enough to change? Its not like I don't have the time to make the changes, but it is like I lack the drive. I would rather do anything else than work at changing. Does that mean I am not meant to? Or that I am just too lazy to make it happen? Or that I don't want it enough? I dunno. I don't even know why I am writing this other than I guess I needed to get it out.
Kol
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4 comments:
Dude. You are one of the most self-reliant and self-confident people that I've met in person. I can understand the desire to change, but your post made it seem as if you didn't want to change, not that you couldn't change. If you see something in yourself that you don't like, I have no doubt in my mind that you are one of the people in the world that can make that change. I have faith in you that you can make that change if you need to and want to.
Man when you decide to philosophize you pick the tough ones don’t you?
I completely understand you saying that your not who you are supposed to be. I know in my heart I am a warrior. A warrior for the light, one who’s cause is so pure that I don’t even have to question it. I can see myself being told do this or that, fight this person or that group, etc. and just doing it, knowing in every cell in my body that what I do is right. What scares me about this person, this being I am not the least worthy to be, is the person I know I should be. Someone told me once when we were talking about things like this that I would have been the perfect Nazi soldier. What I knew then, and I still know now is that they were right. I can’t believe that the soldiers of the Third Reich didn’t believe in what they were being told about them being the true cause, the savior of mankind, the supieor race. No one can do things like they did, and continue to have a will to live without that kind of belief. The fear that I see that in me, and know that to be my ‘true cause’ keeps me from even attempting to be that warrior. It’s a shame really, when I work out I have the build and speed for it.
What I accept though is this; that person will never be. I can’t break past myself to be that person, so I see him but he is like some distant reflection. It is because I choose it though, and although I have no idea (or maybe I do) who you see when you listen to your life, I believe YOU can be him. I have seen you put aside the fears in your life, the doubt, etc. to go for what you want. Let’s face it, neither you nor I were what you would call in shape when we were younger. Yet I remember you in the Peaceful Tiger, going after your dreams, your needs. If you were afraid, you dealt with it and moved on. No one who is truly afraid or lazy puts his foot on the top of a punching bag and lets someone push them into it, or punches a Maki Wara board until they bleed. No one who lives in fear goes back and does that time and time again. You did, and I know in my heart you would still be there if Sifu hadn’t closed the quom. It was, and I know is, acts like that which tell me your true character. Fear is something we all know. The lucky of us accept it and move on. You are one of them, rejoice in it. If you are worried about laziness then, let me tell you something that I learned from my psychologist.
I was taking the medicine he had prescribed, and although I didn’t see that many changes, everyone around me talked about them. Sure, I saw some of them, but what worried me the most was the lack of being able to finish things, or get motivated to start on them. On one of my early visits I mentioned this to him. I asked if maybe I wasn’t taking the right dosage, or it was the wrong medicine. Surely I should have gotten this under control by now. What he told me seems logical and one of those I should have known it, but honestly I had to think about this to get it fully. He said that what I suffered from was habits. I had gotten so used to not doing the work, or not wanting to do the work, that I automatically dealt with those situations the same way I had always done before. He also said that the reason that habits are so hard to break, and here is the kicker, is that a habit is a physical pathway in your brain. Our bodies are always looking for the path of least resistance, it’s what keeps us alive and helps us do so many wonderful things; like learning. What happens is that if you do a certain thing over and over and over again, your body starts to align your nerve cells and brain cells responsible for that action in a pathway (so to speak). It is a physical pathway as much as a logical pathway. Breaking that habit is like forcing your muscles to workout when you haven’t. It’s not something I even thought about really, then I understood that if I wanted to break those habits I had to think about them AS THEY HAPPENED, and force myself NOT to do them. Just like I hate to workout, and given the chance would gladly skip it, I force myself to do so. It’s not my fault really, my nature is the same as all of ours, it’s in our chemistry and genetics, etc. Don’t blame yourself for them, force yourself to change them. In time, new pathways form, and it gets easier and easier to do.
You will be who you want to be Bill. I have no doubts in you, and never will.
Thanks for the feedback guys. it means a lot to me.
Bill
It is funny that the path we wander often parallels each other.
I think I understand where you are coming for...I think I am there with you in a way, maybe a blast radius or two away, like a good soldier.
Self perceptions, are a bastard. They are harder to change than others. At least it is true for me.
It may not matter, but you are one of my heroes.
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