"Be yourself." It's one of the hardest things to do. Why? When someone says, "Be yourself!" inevitably, a voice inside us answers, "Who?"
Sometimes we think we know. And sometimes we actually do know. But most times - too often - we don't know who we are.
Like a fool driving and using the phone at the same time, our performance and - critically, our performance assessment - are retarded. And so we go through life retarded. Living but never fully alive - but for those magic moments.
But those magic moments do exist. We crave them. We want them. We need them. We know they are there, dancing behind the veil. Why are they so hard to reach?
The flight of the butterfly. The light in a child's eyes. The smile of a girl. Precious, fleeting, delicate. So are the things that really matter - that really make life alive. They are as hard to grasp as a dream, because they are dreams.
Our dreams awaken us to life. Without our dreams, we'd be dead alive.
Sad is the sight of those who have wilfully sacrificed their dreams to the gods of fear. "Wisdom." "Reality." "Prudence." These are the nice names they give their gods, but their real name is Fear. The many-headed god of fear, loud of bark but toothless in bite. Shame. Ridicule. Failure. Starvation. Poverty. Death. The many heads of the monster. But he has but one heart, and faith born of love pierces it.
When you know you are loved, you have confidence, and fear no longer intimidates you. Sure, its many faces taunt you, but you slap them and carry on.
Some are born into homes so full of love that this confidence seems built into them. Others - most others - have to find the way for themselves, bumbling from one gutter to another. Until they find the one who has found them. And then they find the way home.
But it's not so easy, is it? It's not a one-time done deal. It's walking, step by step. Step by step, becoming who we are. With the help of the divine in his many guises as our friends, strangers, enemies.
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