Growing up, I believed all rules were set, everything I heard was true, and everything just was the way it was. This type of fixed mindset is dangerous for a young person entering a wide world with billions of people, many with more experience and knowledge than you know. Maybe about 5 years ago now, I felt this urge to unlearn so much. My beliefs, tendencies, as well how I viewed myself, and habits that may be detrimental. These days, it’s a top priority to keep an open mind and ingrain the healthiest habits. That is to not hold so much truth to everything I hear, to work hard and strive to improve, knowing that it DOES pay off in way I don’t yet imagine at the time. With habits, that is to do the baseline necessities for my wellbeing and to not overindulge. It’s actually become easier as I’ve been keen on this for several months now, and honestly I thought I’d never get to this point, but somewhere, something changed.
I don’t always know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, but we as people have an inherent way of making our lifestyle work for this society. For example I used to wander up brooks and take photos of the water with my dogs. It was my favorite thing, yet sometimes I asked myself why I did it; or what was the point. Well I indeed learned a lot, was at peace, saw beauty and became inspired, sold some photographs, got fresh air and exercise, etc.
Whatever it may be, it is not set in stone. Whatever you wish to achieve in this lifetime, you may. Just gotta believe and maintain a solid foundation. You will get there before you realize it, or realize it now.
So, whatever you think you are today… if there are things you wish were different, please understand you will go further, so long as you reach for, and find solace in that reach. Identify what you want your life to look like and what needs to change to make that reality. It can take time, lots of time. But it’s worth every second in becoming a lighter freer version of oneself. And I’m not saying I’ve made it and gotten everything I’ve dreamed of, but I’m much better off than a younger version of myself could have imagined.
Over the past year I’ve come to an improved understanding of what it’s all really about. Not to say my way is better than any other, just one of several billion imperfect perceptions of life. All tuned to a different channel from the very beginning, we grow up and take it all in as it comes at us. Without realizing it, we form our own unique understandings of culture and society based on what is exposed to us day and and day out. Often with this, we don’t give ourselves the chance to take a step back and look at who we actually are and what how we see the world. Instead we often take it all as it is even though it isn’t any which way to begin with. Each individual is tuned to their own channel which presents their view of reality. As people spend sufficient time with another and share their experience, there is a give and take that ever so slightly tunes their channels to be more to comparable frequencies. Being the channels that we are, it’s challenging to look from the outside and see what exactly is making you what you are. As such, we don’t notice the opportunities that arise in order to shift gears in timely moments.
Speaking of time, we are conditioned in such a way of being far too concerned about the future; events that haven’t happened yet. Within this, we’re displaced from our slivers of individual presence. A presence that all are granted with from the dawns of every equal existence. We become concerned with what society tells us we’re supposed to do, rather than the intrinsic gut feeling of what our experience is bringing us to do. Many being afraid to live life because what “would society think of me for pursuing this different path where in my conditioned minds view, society deems to be unacceptable. Our mind creates a story about us based on what we’ve seen, what we’ve done, and what’s happened to us. To separate oneself from that made up story is the beginning of certain freedom.
There have been countless times where I believed there is a set way of life, where these underlying steps need to be followed. For example, upon leaving high school, I thought I was destined to work in a high rise office building in a city. This is what I saw in movies and that’s how What I perceived to be success. Yet, I also had this conflicting notion where I would never be well off in life considering that’s how I grew up as an impressionable child with parents and a family that was not well off. Point being, it can be extremely difficult to escape certain world views; as we grow into them for the first quarter century of life they become engrained into us. We come to believe they are us.
So this past year I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to slow down, look inward, learn, unlearn, reconvene, etc. By no means has it being the greatest year of my life, but it has been different for better for for worse. To wrap this up, I’m better off knowing the highs only go so high and lows only so low. These moments of success and failure, love and hate, light and dark are a constant eternal flow. And for me, creating art is just that; an ongoing practice in creation. A creative output inherently based on an inner experience where I can feel progress being made. Knowing there is no grand finale atop this mountain is solace. There are always more mountains to climb with each their own obstacles to overcome.
Within a society of others telling you they way it is, cut the cord and formulate a more open reality. A reality viewed from all angles where each individual path is acknowledged, for we all are a product of our circumstances.
Life is a continuous path of progression and opening of one’s mind. All furthering ourselves with the importance in knowing there will always be further to go without any set destination. In knowing each individual is incomparable yet equally important from all points on the globe. The grandest understanding is that perceptions are collectively infinite. Each individual is part of the entirety and all stories matter, for all are uniquely intertwined in this vast spectrum we call society.
I used to believe that we’re very much shaped by the environments we grow up in. The people we’re to become largely relies on the experiences and people around us. But I’ve found that it’s so much more than that, as in an instantaneous type of way. Each place or setting that we put ourselves into, we become. Where ever we are and whoever we’re with; that’s what we are. If we don’t naturally become a part of it, that is how unwarranted distress can easily occur.
We all have friend groups, we have individual friends, we have family, extended family and so on. The ways in which we behave and feel around each of these groups can vary depending on comfortability and place. Think of the last time you were at a party of with in a group setting where you weren’t feeling it. You wanted to be at home with your comforts or just outside, away from everybody. Yet there you were sulking until the night’s end. This is what happens when we put ourselves into places that we don’t necessarily want to be and additionally, don’t make the most of it. When you’re in a place, yet so psychologically retreated from it, no good thing is bound to happen.
In another sense, once among nature there are no worries. That is because nature does not worry. Nature just is, it blows in the wind, it moves down stream, it grows and erodes overtime with no complaint. While we’re within that environment, we do just the same. What we see it what we are in that respect, and that’s why it makes us feel good about where we’re at.
It’s a similar deal when we’re at a concert and we dance. Because the uplifting energy of the music, the band, and the people around us lends itself to dancing. Notice there are some concerts where people don’t dance, the energy may not be great for one reason or another, but it is entirely possibly for one individual in the crowd to spark the moment and give it all they got; to transform the energy of the crowd, the band, and the music they play. This I turn transforms the entire environment into what’s its meant to be.
We also become our environment in the sense that if we’re in a broken household we’re more susceptible to be a broken person. It is only when when taking the big step to leave on toward something better and new that we find this broken state is not really our permanent self. Through discovering new places and people that are healthy to the mind, that is when we quickly begin to heal and become anew. When we’re in a tidy and bright household, with supportive parents, and inspiring objects, art, equipment, it is possible to become so much more at an earlier age. It is for this reason that those of the former household must work so much harder, whether that’s through
There are many people in the world that are in so called “soul crushing” jobs. Well, that is because they become their job. If the job does not speak to you, it has no place in your life. The job is not meant to be. There are so many opportunities, ways to live in this day in age, yet we only see the reality of what is directly in front of us, so anything else seems impossible. We create excuses for why it might not work out for us.
Again, we become our environment naturally. We adapt in the ways that we need to. It’s human nature at it’s core. In this sense, anything you begin, anything that you desire to achieve is possible. Don’t allow fears to hold you back, because fear is simply the back side of something better. Climb the mountain, get around the wall, dig the trench, crawl through the dirt. Do what you need to do in order to be on the other side of fear.
So, when you think of what you’d like to be or how you want your life to look, it is firstly important to look at your surroundings. The room you spend your time in. Is is tidy or a mess? Does it inspire you or make you upset? The food in your refrigerator, what does it say?
The people you spend most your time with. There is no problem with the people, but if you are constantly wishing for something else, something more, you won’t find it here. You can’t change people, you can only change your environment, thus changing yourself and the path that you’re on.
You are what surrounds you, so surround yourself with what you’d like to be. Embrace what you have, with the tools at your ready. You can create something amazing so long as you become a part of that which is intrinsically beautiful.
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