Sunday, August 24, 2014

Define yourself

If you ask twenty random people about what you should do with your life, you will get twenty different answers. If you flip through TV channels, read magazine covers, listen to podcasts or follow fashion, it is the same. 

What should you study? Where should you work? What should you wear? These and many other questions can easily yield answers. There’s only one problem. 

They’re wrong.

It’s not that the insight of other people is not useful, it’s just that in life, who you are, what you do and how you behave should be defined by yourself. 

One of the most important mantras (in my life at least) is to define yourself. 

Don’t let circumstances, conditions, pressure, other people’s behavior, or anything else define you, who you are and what you do. Do it yourself. You’ll be amazed at the freedom you feel. The catch is that with this freedom comes accountability and that frightens many. 

Taking full responsibility for your actions is a big step because you can’t blame anyone other than yourself for anything that happens. You can’t say a mistake came about because of a moment of weakness. You are left crutchless and without excuses. 

It’s all on you.

The flipside is that you get to listen to your heart instead of the noise that surrounds you. You wear what you want to wear because you want to wear it. That’s because what’s in season depends on what’s in your season, not the rest of the world. You listen to whatever music you want to listen to. You act according to your inner compass. It is liberating, empowering and makes it a whole lot easier to love yourself and smile, because you only have to please one person. 

This is not a call to self-centeredness… it’s a call to live and think for yourself. It’s a call for self-love and individuality while looking to connect who you truly are with who another person truly is. It’s a call for tolerance and acceptance. Be what you want to be not what anyone else wants to impose on you and invite others to love themselves for who they are.

After all, in the story of your life, there is only one editor... make sure you define as you see fit then. 

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