There ain’t no man can save me
There ain’t no man can enslave me
Ain’t no man or men that can change the shape my soul is in
There ain’t nobody here who can cause me pain or raise my fear (“Ain’t No Man” Avett Brothers)
For the better part of my year, I have tried to impress someone. I have walked various and numerous avenues to gain their admiration with little success. As you can imagine, it is a game of frustrated self punishment. How depressed we get when our life revolves around winning the admiration of anyone. In this ridiculous cycle, we lose ourselves and make divine someone who could never shoulder the burden of a God. Any time we lose our identity, our compass, the frail ship sinks. Perhaps this is why the most important question we can ask is “Who am I?”. And this is not a general question but a daily one. Who am I today? Am I living out of my identity with fidelity in this current moment?
When we live to fill others’ expectations, or at least how we often wrongly perceive them, we not only fail at being our true selves but also the self we were never created to be. We drum up an impossible identity and then punish ourselves when we unsurprisingly cannot make the mark. The fact is they are so consumed with their own lives, as all humans are, they simply don’t have the time or energy to weigh the content of your character. Our approval exercises are worthless.
Today, who are you? Are you you or the person you think other’s want?
Matt simon blog 