Some Days are Going to be Hard

Some days are going to be hard. Even when you make a decision to change your life you will meet challenges that make you want to stop. Making the decision is hard in the first place. Putting action into that decision is even harder. Unfortunately, change requires hard and sometimes painful action. It requires a willingness to be completely yourself. Now some would argue that if your whole life has been disastrous,  being yourself hasn’t worked. I say that if you haven’t been successful in finding happiness, you were never being yourself.

There’s too much noise

For all of us there is too much noise. So much that we cannot even begin to hear ourselves. We are indoctrinated from the moment we leave our mothers womb, by other peoples belief systems and cultural teaching. Decisions are made for us about health, religion and even our names are placed upon us without us knowing anything about it. We are moulded immediately. We learn a language, maybe two, and go to school. But what are we learning? We learn what we are told is fact or truth. And much of what we learn is beneficial and helps us to navigate through life. The history we are taught however, couldn’t be more flawed and bias. It is some other peoples version of events. Much like how we grow up understanding ourselves in fact – we are influenced by other peoples versions of us. We see and hear ourselves through other peoples eyes and ears and not our own. Too much noise.

Scraping back the dirt

Where then do we find silence just to be? Unfortunately for most of us it takes a crisis in adulthood before we understand we need to start from the start again. Now that we have jurisdiction over our thoughts, words and deeds an opportunity comes to see the world differently. We have choices. Pulling back the blanket of illusion placed around us is an option. I am not my colour, nationality, name or religion yet being brought up defined by all of those things brought a lifetime of struggle and suppression. It kept me in my assigned box. I’d spill out over the top of that box sometimes and taste freedom. Of course I was punished but it was always worth it. When I finally left for good I knew that some days are going to be hard, and they are, but still worth it.

Some days are going to be hard

Choosing your own way of life is hard when you come from a supressed, indoctrinated upbringing. I’m not unique in that of course. I don’t think I know any person that is not influenced by others in some way negatively. I have found that fighting for the freedom to be myself has almost killed me. It’s the internal struggle that’s the hardest. The fight between real freedom of thought and action, against the detrimental desire to fit in. I’ve drank and drugged my way into oblivion to escape the battle at times. I’ve cared to much and too little, exorcised demons then welcomed them back and ran only to find myself standing in the same place. But that’s it you see. You don’t have to move on or forward or back or anywhere. You just have to stand where you are and just be and use your own eyes and ears and heart and soul to decipher lies and truth. Just be. But some days are going to be hard.