Have you ever heard or read the assertion, "There is nothing wrong with you"? What if you really believed it to be true? Think on it.
Much of this life, for many of us, is spent looking forward to something or other. We consciously or unconsciously identify personal and/or professional goals based on what we value, and we become heavily invested in attaining those goals. Such is the nature of things, and it's good.
What if, however, we refrained from basing our concept of self-worth, or of success, on our perceived ability to identify and attain those goals? What if instead we believed we are, by nature -- by default -- fantastically wonderful, amazing creatures, worthy of total admiration, love, and respect? And what if, in realizing those things, we discovered we can give those gifts to ourselves: that we can give ourselves unconditional admiration, love, and respect?
And what if such realizations were not mutually exclusive with living an actual human life? In other words, what if none of that stuff meant we had to live our lives as cloistered, levitating monks? Or that we wouldn't be periodically disappointed, disgusted, angry, guilty, sad, frustrated, unbalanced, unstable, irrational, or hurtful?
What if, instead, the foundational self-worth I'm speculating about enabled us to discover a truer compassion, truer forgiveness, truer remorse, truer kindness, truer intelligence, truer intuition, truer serenity, and truer freedom to pursue the goals and loves of our lives?
Food for thought.
Yes Nathan! I am "freaking out with joy" about this post. I feel goals are a positive and motivating and often necessary. However I also think they can be a heavy weight and a short stick if our goals come more from societal/familial/social expectations rather than from our authentic self. And to be in touch with and establish goals from our authentic self we must accept and love who we are rather than mourn or punsh ourselves for who we are not. What an amazing goal to accomplish to truly know ourselves, to love and accept ourselves as we would have others love and accept us. To accept ourselves in failire and transition and allow these experiences to help shape us, to become integrated into our whole. So let's set goals that really matter to us and in doing this, use our lives to pursue the things we love, to love others well, and to let ourselves be loved well.
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