JUST LIKE JULIA

Maybe the question isn’t: Are you happy?, but Are you happy with where you are now?

I look back on memories fondly, yet as I recall that moment, I know I am elsewhere.

My emotions, thoughts: somewhere else, wanting things to be different.

To be perfect.

To be better than it already is.

I am somewhere in between: confident, happy with my life and abilities and feeling unworthy and undeserving of all that I am and desire.

Can we appreciate the moment that we’re in in all of its fullness? Can we appreciate everything that bubbles up to the surface? To witness our experience as just that: an experience? With all of its jealousy, envy, joy, sadness, contentment? Witnessing the way we want things to change and appreciating what already is?

I believe it’s human nature to struggle with self esteem and self deprecation. I surely can’t be the only one to think: I am a terrible person and I am a kind and loving person at the same time.

Is this the duality that this human experience brings? To feel both at the same time, a fine line that veils both. Perhaps it isn’t black and white but more blended. Like watercolors that bleed together. Like feeling every color within a rainbow.

The external world will try to tell you who you are and who you should be. People will project their beliefs onto you.

And if you do not know who you are, you will believe whatever they say.

So, a phrase I have seen often enough to remember is: Know Thyself

If you know yourself, no one else can tell you who you are.

Only what they perceive of you. And you can agree or disagree with their perceptions.