Recently I let go of two things.
1. Ego.
2. The fear of what other people think about me.
I don't care how long you have known me. I am not going to live my life according to your views. I am not limiting myself because you decided that you were okay with complacency. I'm not scared to fail. That's what separates me from a lot of others. I don't care about failure. I only care about the lessons that come from it. If you paralyze yourself because you are comfortable enough to live with your excuses, do you. However, that's not me. It was never me and it will never be me. I don't care if I win or fail. The only thing I will care about on my deathbed was actually putting myself out there and trying. I'd rather close my eyes to eternity with that in my mind than the idea of "what-if".
I have no desire to live a "what-if" life.
What if I tried harder?
What if I made that move?
What if I left him/her sooner?
What if I made the fucking sacrifice?
What if I got the fuck out of my own head?
What if I had stopped talking down to myself?
What if I stopped putting up my own hurdles?
What if I stopped blocking my own blessings?
Listen, if you want to limit yourself, be my guest. However, don't fucking stop people from following their passion because YOU are too scared too. If you are happy with this complacency, do you boo. Just leave that caustic attitude to yourself. Stop spreading it. No one needs it.
If you are a person surrounded by people like this then...
END. THAT. TOXIC. RELATIONSHIP. NOW!
Don't waste another second next on someone who is okay with not exploring this world of opportunities and wants you with them in that hole.
Perhaps life is different for me. Since I was born an African-American female in this country I have nothing the fuck to lose.
For a long time I felt like I had to me the model citizen. That everything I did in the corporate atmosphere was the reflection of my whole race and gender. I had to be perfect. I am holding up everyone who looked like me on my shoulders. I can't fail them. These were the thing that raced through my mind every morning.
However, the more perfect I tried to be the more it tore me up inside. Not allowing myself the ability to make mistakes and be vulnerable was eating my soul, making my real mistakes that much more noticeable on company-wide level, which lead me to breaking out all over my body. If you guys know me... I don't wear makeup but I take my skin so fucking seriously! Breaking out was the last straw!
One day I had a conversation with a co-worker who told me to just fucking stop it. Okay, he was MUCH nicer than that but I can read between the lines. He is someone I really admired. He seemed so perfect in every sense of the way. Then he confessed to me he makes job threatening mistakes almost every day. And he was still here.
When HE told me that. It sparked a change in my thinking. It was the beginning of me becoming fully happy again.
ONCE I LEFT GO OF THAT EGO and FEAR my happiness came back. I began doing better. People started to notice. Shit, I can see it with the direction of where my art is going.
Trust me, it's something I work on every. single. day.
Letting go of ego and fear is the most freeing thing you can do for your mind, body, and spirit.
I limited myself to what other peoples' ideals were. I did this to myself. I placed myself in a box that I was dying to get out of. Blaming everyone else for being trapped. However, not realizing that all I had to do was knock it over and let myself out. Once I took accountability for my life I broke free.
I had these thoughts because I was scared to fully embrace myself because of what society has deemed me as. Then I thought, the people who made the most change in the world were the ones who said, "FUCK THIER THOUGHTS!"
Once I changed my mind frame and got real with why I was limiting myself I felt a total change in the way I started seeing the world and how much better my work and art was becoming.
Sorry, this isn't my regular boudoir post, but I had to get this words out and let the world see them. Please, understand that once you remove all self-inflicted limitations, accept what you cannot change, and embrace vulnerability to let go of ego, you will begin to gain happiness.
If you like to know ways to Choose your Happiness please check out this post we wrote some time back!
