Finding yourself is about the hardest task that there is. You would think it is easy given that you don't have to go searching for any answers or clues to what the truth might be. Whatever is needed in the quest is right there within you- all you have to do is look. But as thousands of years of human history have proven, the answer to the question "Who am I?", continues to elude most of us.
I can't speak for others - I am not that enlightened - but for me the hardest part of this search lies not in the finding, but in the accepting. When I look within myself I don't see a simple straight truth by which I can conveniently define myself. I see instead a jumble of emotions and characteristics. It is a complex landscape of pride sitting side by side with failure, hopes entangled with grief, aspirations going head to head with resignations. I am full of contradictions and there is no way to take all this complexity and cram it into a thirty second elevator pitch that would make any sense.
Unfortunately there is no room in the "real" world for my contradictions and ironies. I have to be either one or the other. Every day I fill out forms that force me to choose what I am and by that same token what I am not. However, my inner self defies this neat partitioning. When I gather the courage to accept my polarities and fallacies and stop trying to be a box to be checked off, maybe I will finally be my own me.
I can't speak for others - I am not that enlightened - but for me the hardest part of this search lies not in the finding, but in the accepting. When I look within myself I don't see a simple straight truth by which I can conveniently define myself. I see instead a jumble of emotions and characteristics. It is a complex landscape of pride sitting side by side with failure, hopes entangled with grief, aspirations going head to head with resignations. I am full of contradictions and there is no way to take all this complexity and cram it into a thirty second elevator pitch that would make any sense.
Unfortunately there is no room in the "real" world for my contradictions and ironies. I have to be either one or the other. Every day I fill out forms that force me to choose what I am and by that same token what I am not. However, my inner self defies this neat partitioning. When I gather the courage to accept my polarities and fallacies and stop trying to be a box to be checked off, maybe I will finally be my own me.
