I've never felt like I fit in. Sometimes this has been something to celebrate and sometimes to cry about. There are times when you want to fit in as a child - at social events, playing sports, at school. But even though I was a very active child, busy with countless extracurricular activities, I always felt alone. It was as if I wasn't having the same experience as everyone else - I was processing it differently. I always excelled at the things I did solo, like music, art, shot-put. And I just became average when I played team sports or did music with other people. I just felt I never got what life was all about for people. I just knew they weren't living in my head.
It wasn't until I was about thirty that I was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder, but it made much of my life make sense. I really wasn't having the same experience as everyone else. My brain was processing things differently. Knowing this put me on a path towards understanding how my brain worked and why I felt, thought and experienced the things I did. Here I am almost twenty years later, and I really am feeling like I've solved the puzzle that is me. Meds and therapy helped immensely. So did my constant day-to-day attention to the workings of my mind.
We, as human animals, are products of our need. We need food and shelter from the elements. We need attention and love. We think we need a lot more, like new shoes and a killer stereo system, but that is mostly what advertising tells us we need to be as good as others. When we wear sunglasses when it's not even sunny, we're filling the need to be thought of as cool or pretty. When we drive an expensive car, we're filling the need to be thought of as wealthy. When we do Yoga, we're filling the need to be thought of as spiritual and healthy. We do so much so that other people will think of us in certain ways. Our needs define us.
Recently, After starting a new job that pays my bills, gives me free time, and never feels like work, I began to think about my own needs. I used to have a need to make art and music and to write stories. Now I realize that I wanted to be thought of as intelligent, and those were ways in which I could make my intelligence manifest. If I write this song, people will like me. If I paint this picture, people will like me. If I write this story, people will like me. My need was obviously for people to like me. I think it is a universal need. But I have come to like myself, and anyone who really pays attention to who I am will probably like me too. I'm sure of it. So I no longer have the same degree of need to be liked. I suppose I still have it a little.
Realizing how few my needs really were was liberating. I need food and I need to be loved, and I have those things. So I'm at an important crossroads in my life. I am as happy as anyone could be, and my only real need is to teach it, to share it as best I can. I realize that there is no formula I can teach to be happy. I learned only how I can be happy with the life I have led. It doesn't mean you can do the same with your life. My solution took 49 years of living to come to. But maybe we are all more similar than I imagine. Maybe you need just a few words to help you on your journey.
First - You're going to die. You have to embrace that. Your life is a very finite thing. I don't believe in an immortal soul, so for me, these 49 years have been a singular miracle and I hope to continue the miracle for as long as I can. But I know I may die today. Any minute. They talk about "making your peace with God" before you die. I think this means opening up the vault of your mind and examining every action and finding the things you've left unfinished and either letting them go, because they won't mean anything after you die, or taking action to remedy them. We have a need to be forgiven. Whose forgiveness do you need? Ask for it now. Then you can embrace your mortality, not merely accept it.
Second - Examine your needs. How many needs drive you to act in ways other than your true nature? How many needs are driven by hunger? By sex? By anger? Try not to be a slave to your needs. You are an animal, and you can just look at other animals and see how very few their needs are. Embrace your animal nature and see that food and sex sometimes do drive all animals. But be aware of your human nature, too. It is human nature to want status and money and acclaim. These are wants, not needs, but they're closely tied to our need to mate. Even if we have no children and never plan to have any, our brains are programmed to find mates. We try to attract them in everything we do, even if we are in committed, monogamous relationships.
Third - Don't live in the past. Everything you've ever done is a part of who you are in the present. Take some time to let those things catch up with you, they are all weights dragging behind you and impeding your progress. Either cut them loose or find the strength to carry them. Do not let them weigh you down. I think everyone's biggest weight is their relationship with their family, and most often, their parents. Your parents didn't appear out of thin air. They are the product of other parents who were also just doing the best they could with what they'd been given. We are part of a long line that reaches back to when no one really knew anything at all about life. We all just learn a little bit and pass it on, and hopefully life keeps getting better with every generation. Your parents might have been lousy parents. Or they might have been abusive or neglectful parents. It was not their choice. Their generation just had not learned enough to be better parents. At some point, if you didn't have the perfect parents, you have to cut the line and not let their actions color everything you do. They just gave you a push, and now you're pedaling your own bicycle and can go where you please. You are in charge of your life, not them. So when you feel you should turn left, because your father is making you feel that way, know that you can turn any way you want. They are behind you, and even if they gave you a shaky start, you now know how to ride.
Fourth - Feel the connection. We all evolved from the same initial life form. Whether that was God or just some random happening, all life is related and interconnected. Every person on the planet is your relation. We have the same life within us. People might act like strangers, but that's because they take life for granted. Every interaction with a stranger is a reconnecting with the spirit of life. We all want the same thing - for life to continue. It's all every life form wants. We just keep making more life. And as humans, we get distracted by material possessions and think that that's what we really want - that will make us happy. But that's not where happiness comes from. Happiness comes from letting go of all desires. Cut the past off as if with a knife and do not project into the future. You are alive. That's all. That's all there is. In the present moment, you have no identity, no personality, no baggage, no fear. You just are. And you are on a planet of living things. And they are all a part of your experience of being. Just stop life in this instant, and realize that everything right now is perfect. Right now, you are without needs of any kind. You don't even need to eat right now. Just let your body breathe - you don't even have to try. Watch your breath. Feel the life.
Fifth - Confront your fears. We most often try to ignore our fear so it will go away. But it lives in an unconscious part of our mind and is present in everything we do. We avoid facing fears with the hope that they will somehow magically diminish. But the only way to get past fear is by confronting it head on. You need to admit to yourself what you're really afraid of: You're afraid that people will not like you. That is everyone's basic, fundamental fear. "People may not like me if they know the things I've done. People will judge me and I will be considered less-than." Our egos want to be big. They can only be as big as our most shameful action unless you divorce yourself from your actions by letting fear drop away. Recognize your fear, then go on without it. If you don't take the time to recognize it, it will live like a little imp inside of you, poisoning all your best intentions. We all just want to be loved. No one loves the little imp. Let it go and let people see who you truly are.
Sixth - Let people see who you truly are! You are an amazing amalgam of experiences, unique in all the world. There is every reason on earth to celebrate that! Find the things in life that make you feel alive and explore them. Learn new things. Grow your brain. And communicate! No one will ever know everything about you, but after you've let go of fear and shame, you are a magical being and you need to let that being out in the world. If you just wake up each morning and don't feel instantly alive, then you're missing something. Tomorrow, when you wake up, let this be your first thought: I am alive! It is a miracle! Then take that attitude out to the the world and share it with everyone you see. You don't have to say or do anything different. Just feel the miracle every second, and other people will feel it with you.
I am living my own miraculous life. I feel as if I've won the game. All I had to do was think about it for half a century. Now I just want to share it. This is too good a feeling not to share. Life is so much sweeter when we're connected to other people. I hope that I have connected with you. Sometimes I feel like a stranger in a strange land. There are people all around me who seem miserable. And they're all just trying to fit in. And I want to tell them all how easy happiness is. How easy life is. I want to live in a world full of happy people, and I don't think that's just a pipe dream. For now, I may not fit in, but the way in which I don't fit in is definitely something to celebrate!
No comments:
Post a Comment