The Realness

Alright blogosphere, I have some things to talk about.

You know those moments in life when you feel like things aren’t in place and something just isn’t right? You judge every situation looking for the flaw or where you went wrong or what you could’ve done better. You beat yourself up for not knowing better, or knowing better and not acting better, or knowing and acting better but getting the same result anyway because life is cruel sometimes. How about the moments that you feel hurt by really insignificant things; like a girl ghosting you a week after you get her number and all of a sudden your mind spirals into this ocean of thought waves crashing on you telling you that you can’t even succeed at texting. Fricken texting — The most important skill of our generation! What a useless human you are if you can’t capture someone’s attention with some unique, extremely clever remark that no other human has ever come up with before when speaking to this particular individual! Such incompetence! Jason from math class can text a girl with his man peck nipple and be more interesting than you. You suck!

The sad part is, I’m not exaggerating. Is that bad? Should I really be sharing this? Is this “taboo”? Maybe I should be terrified of the judgement that I will most definitely receive, and not say anything! God forbid I put my salient image of masculinity at risk!

Fuck it. This is real locker room talk.

I’ve always wondered about the source of insecurity. We come up with all of these methods to combat it, but I’ve always found the creator of such a monster to be rather elusive. How does one get to a point where they’re not confident in their ability to just be themselves? Why do other people have to like you for you to like you? Have you ever wondered that — how dependent you are on others’ judgement? I think in part it’s a social construct. We’re judged to get a grade. We’re judged to get into a good school. We’re judged to get a job. We’re judged to get a date. We’re judged to get into heaven (Shout out to grace!). We’re judged for pretty much everything we need to survive in this culture. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but perhaps it does us no good to make things even more difficult by so strongly judging ourselves.

I recently took an improvisational acting intensive (I know, random right?) and it was quite literally the weirdest 6 hours of my life. It was this mix of creative expression, meditation, awkward silence, kundalini yoga, some funky smelling wood, energy stuff, shakra stuff, pretending to be talking fences being destroyed by evil rabbits, and acting. To be honest, I felt pretty uncomfortable most of the time. It was super hippie, like the LA stereotype you see in movies. I felt like Don Draper in the last season of Mad Men sitting there at some hippie retreat thinking everyone is crazy. Despite my discomfort, it was a positive experience because I realized, in a very tangible way, just how much I judge myself. How so, you ask? Think about it. Here I was in this judgement free zone, with complete permission to be goofy and crazy and totally myself and I was there thinking the whole time. I didn’t feel much. I tried to, but then my mind told me that I’m just not an empathetic person. Interesting how I need to derive an explanation. A part of me wanted to be goofy and crazy and say things that didn’t make sense and have that be okay. I wanted to feel. I wanted to connect with these strangers in the room. I learned by the end of the workshop that my judgement is restricting. It stunts my creativity. It’s the voice that tells me not to write a blog post at midnight on a school night about vulnerable shit that I haven’t been able to put into words for over a year. Where does this judgement come from? Can I learn how to stop it and be free?

After sitting with these questions for a full week now, I think I have it narrowed down. The answer is EXPECTATION. It’s pretty common knowledge that expectations have this amazing ability to destroy relationships. Really all they do is breed opportunities for disappointment. But what about what we expect from ourselves? Surely, having expectations is natural to some extent, but I don’t think an abundance of them is particularly healthy. I will now take this opportunity to share with you just how critical of myself I can be! Yay for confessions!

I expect myself to be correct.

I expect myself to be one of the smartest people in the room.

I expect myself to impress others.

I expect myself to be clever, witty, different, and memorable.

I expect myself to be critical, analytical, and logical.

I expect myself to appear strong and emotionally sanguine.

I expect myself to solve your problems.

I expect myself to make you laugh, think, cry, and I get bonus points if I do all three at the same time.

I expect myself to write creatively and deeply.

I expect myself to recognize all of my mistakes all of the time.

I expect myself to not expect myself to be perfect because that’s going too far.

I expect myself to influence your life in some way.

I expect myself to not let you down.

I expect you to like me.

And why shouldn’t I? I work damn hard to maintain all of these expectations! Why wouldn’t you like me? I’m amazing! I’m an accomplished young man! I’m the best friend you’ll ever have! I’m the best man you’ll ever meet! I’m the last coke in the desert! If I’m not in your life, then you’re not living!

EGO — I expect you to judge me.

It’s funny how ego creates this cycle in my life. I expect because of my ego, and I have ego because of my expectations. I’m really, just now, starting to learn about my ego. Anyone who knows me well knows that I’ve struggled with ego my whole life. There is a difference between confidence and ego. Confidence is self-love, acceptance, optimism, and a conviction that you are capable. Ego is the heart crushing desire to earn everything. It defines you based on your achievements, status, and number of Facebook likes. Expectation is the brick, judgement is the building, and ego is the asshole CEO at the top bragging about not paying taxes and running for president. Ego is the perfect cover up for insecurity, it’s the fake you that would theoretically exist if you actually met all of your ridiculous expectations.

My ego doesn’t love well.

I believe I can learn to stop and be free. Of course I can. I have faith in a God who loves without condition. I have confidence in knowing the liberating power of grace. I have a passion for growth, art, and truth. Society already expects enough from us, why make it worse? Why not live in the hope of being better than we were yesterday and not quite as good as we’ll be tomorrow? Why not suspend judgement when we just want to play, be goofy, and connect deeply? Why not make authenticity and vulnerability part of strength’s definition? Why not say it’s okay to fail, it’s okay if you get rejected, it’s okay if you’re not there yet? It’s okay because trying after failure, rejection, and time is progress. It’s not okay to hate yourself because the true you is far beyond what you could ever expect. There’s way too much hate in the world already.