You Owe Yourself…Yourself!

Do you remember that version of you that did what you wanted to do? Remember when you didn’t hide your aversions or your interests? Can you recall the time when what you thought, meant something and you weighed others opinions instead of simply adopting them? It seems that for so many people the days of independent thought have been overtaken by the great “media machine” ever working to coral people into predictable chutes leading eventually to their own demise. How did this happen to us? What the heck happened to our own minds?

Each one of us has a built-in litmus test called our own heart. Sure, we’re not always right about things. Sure, we are often deceived by what appears versus what really is, but we still have the capacity to know when something isn’t right. That subtle inkling; that uneasiness or feeling in your gut all work together to help you see what remains yet unseen. You know exactly what I’m talking about, right? Someone proposes an idea or a concept and on the inside you think, “Oh hell no,” but once your friends start weighing in and social media begins to prompt you and the news people offer their opinions (yeah, when did news shows start having opinions?) you find yourself agreeing with things you don’t agree with. Before you even recognize what is going on you have been shuffled into the majority deck where your card no longer matters. Ugh…

How did this happen to you? When did you start ignoring yourself? If you think about how people live today, you’ll notice a low-level to high level anxiety that folks have just learned to live with. We walk around feeling anxious and uneasy and accept it as normal. Have you noticed? Anxiety is at an all-time high! Everywhere, everyone, scared to death. Why? Because we are being fed a non-stop diet of fear in the form of “the public has a right to know” and we have gotten to the point where we don’t even question it. Fear, fear, fear night and day and we just keep on digesting it and wonder why we aren’t okay.

It might surprise you to hear this, but you weren’t designed to live in fear. Hey call it anxiety, call it worry, but whatever you call it, it is fear and it isn’t the norm, it’s an aberration. You have unwillingly accepted it by not taking the time (we are all so busy…) to listen to your heart and settle those vague notions that are eating you alive. You feel nervous or upset and just forge ahead hoping it will go away. Well, it won’t go away because you haven’t resolved it yet. It’s your heart and you owe it to yourself to resolve it. You resolve it by taking the time to figure out what is bothering you and then to seek out a solution or an idea or some truth that will overcome it. Fear is always wrong and there’s no learning to live with it. It’s gonna get you. Your life is certainly worth settling the matter once and for all. It’s not “just life,” it’s death working by small imperceptible steps.  It may not actually kill you today, but it will kill off your enthusiasm, your excitement, your joy! And, with those things missing, you aren’t really living anyway.

Of course there’s more to it than just having a miserable life. Absent your own thoughts or worse no longer trusting your own thoughts, leads to slavery. Control of a people or a nation relies on making the inhabitants slaves; dependent upon other people to tell you how you feel; what you think and what is okay and what isn’t. Now that’s scary! People no longer willing to trust themselves and make their own choices are people becoming slaves. What the world needs right now is you; the real you! It needs you to say, “No, I don’t want that!” It needs you to stand up for what you believe and quit being afraid that what you really think won’t get many “likes.” Every great, meaningful movement in recorded history began with someone not afraid to think for themselves. It started with some bold person, while recognizing some injustice or some wrong being done,  willing to step out into the light of day and speak up. Is that you? Well, on the inside it is…

It is often reported that it’s not about you the individual, it’s about the society as a whole. Well, I’m here to tell you that society is about you. A healthy society is dependent upon the free-thinkers, the dreamers, the malcontents. Yeah, we live here in this great country because someone rebelled! Many don’t like where our world is headed but even more are willing to be silent about it. And worse, the multitudes have chosen not to think at all and instead settle for the pre-digested opinions of some media personality whose motive isn’t to inform you, but instead to satisfy his own thirst.

You owe it to yourself to be true to yourself. You owe yourself a peaceful, quiet heart. You owe yourself control of yourself and vow never to give control to another person. You owe yourself the opportunity to make full unabashed use of who you are and offer what no one else can give! You owe yourself…yourself!

Peaceful waters can discern even the slightest agitation. Turbulent, troubled waters cannot.

Live in peace my friends. You owe yourself that!

Just some good thoughts…