where you should be and where you want to be

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

e.e. cummings

Being yourself is tough. Not because you don’t want to be yourself or because you don’t know what you want to be as yourself but because the world around you is constantly suggesting you should be something else. That doesn’t mean that the world is always wrong. Growing up means learning that some things about yourself should change. But I think if I had been there when e.e. wrote this I would have suggested he be more specific … for the hardest battle you are fighting is one of character.

Life and other people are constantly trying to put some thick clouds up in the sky so that north star of “what is right versus wrong” gets more difficult to locate. And that is where it gets tough in the battle for self. Sometimes you just have to know where that star is even if you cannot see it all the time. And you just have to wait for the clouds to depart. And waiting is tough. That to me is sometimes the battle.

So. If you would like to get a glimpse of the battle from a 20something perspective click here to see what Jamie has to say.

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Written by Bruce