The Hidden Value of You
How you may be taking the wrong approach to change your life
Going into the New Year, I knew that there were some things that I wanted to change about how I approached life. In the past year, I’ve felt incredibly out of touch, and had a lack of control over the speed at which every day passed me by; so I reflected.
I realized that I felt this way because I was too concerned with having control in the first place. Every day was an uphill battle of trying to be something greater than I thought I already was.
This inner struggle made the easy days unnecessarily hard, and the hard days impossible. This is what I’ve come to understand: there is no person that I need to be other than my truest self.
I know that you have heard it all. You have listened to all of the podcasts. You have read all of the books. You have done all of the work. The shadow work, the journaling, the meditation, the changes in scenery, the alterations of friend groups, and of course the impromptu dramatic haircut. None of these things saved you, did they?
You have nothing to prove to any organization, any person, in any place, nor to the universe or your higher power. There is no magic list of items that will let you heal from the things that have hurt you.
There is not a particular person you must meet for you to mend your broken heart. You don’t need to follow “these 5 habits of highly attractive people,” to find companionship in your life.
We all want to be better people. Whether it is on our own accord, or because of circumstance, we all want to be someone we aren’t already.
In this golden age of self-improvement, there are many resources and tools to help you supposedly achieve this goal, but nobody ever tells you the truth. You don’t need any of them.
The person you wish to become is someone you already are, and you are already deserving of the things that you desire. Despite what the toxic positivity of mass guru-ism may lead you to believe, there are no prerequisites to being yourself. You are already your best self. You only struggle to see it.
There is only one thing that requires the change you so desperately seek: your perspective. It is easy to be caught up in your potential. You may find yourself hyperfocused on your future, while what is truly important, and most transformative, is who you are today.
The person reading this article is the only person in control of anything. You of the past can not affect the present, and you of the future can not affect the past. The power of improvement lies in the now. To quote the great stoic Marcus Aurelius,
No man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.
When we change our perspective on how we can best exist in the now, we are no longer distracted by the mystery of what is to come. No one likes a person who can not appreciate a defining moment, let alone a defining life.
In the end, if you live your life presently, with little care for the outcome, you will find yourself soon on the other side of your desire. One day you will wake up, look into the mirror, and see the individual you’ve always wanted to be staring back at you.
Live in the now, and the rest will come to you.
Last year, I broke up with my girlfriend of one year who had also been my friend for five. To put it simply, it eviscerated me. I had no idea how to pick up the pieces. I had no idea of who I was, no recollection of the before, no premonition of who I could be after.
Since then, I‘ve been doing much better. I’ve caught my stride, and I’ve re-invested time into myself, in the present, instead of investing it into delusions of what could’ve been, or the perfect outcome of this immensely shitty situation.
In one of my most recent reads, This Is Me Letting You Go, by Heidi Priebe there is a quote that truly resonated with me, and captures the essence of this article well:
You realize that sometimes, that’s truly the only way to move forward: sadly and uncertainly and long before you are ready. That if you wait until you feel ready, you may just be waiting forever.
You will never be ready. There is nothing that can prepare you. If you actually want to see a change in your life, note these realities, and take a step forward in indifference. This is how you will truly find your way.
