Tag Archives: be yourself

All the world is a stage

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I pondered this subject line quite a bit this morning and never realized, until now, how we really do play to an audience for most of our lives.  We play the role of the child, the sibling, the friend, the spouse, the partner, the parent, the employee and sometimes the boss.  But it is not until we are sheltered in the comfort of our homes that we become our true selves.  We are stripped of our costumes, the make-up is washed off, the warts come out, the facade is cracked and we are able to be who we truly are with no one to judge us and bombard us with their expectations.

There are moments we glorify with outward happiness when we second guess the cause of that jubilation.  There are times we feign sadness when we are unaffected by the emotion.  We play the role, but we play it to the best of our ability because, as human beings, we know that we need to portray those emotions to help us feel what others feel and give them a sense of understanding.  And in certain moments, we are honestly affected by the circumstance that created those feelings.  Empathy is a strong emotion and those affected with it, as I am, may disagree with my thought process.  But as a truly empathetic person I, too, have been a victim of over-acting a part to assuage the despair of others.

RymanStage

(image credit: nashvilleonthemove.com)

We choose a role and the stage is set.  The lights dim and the scene begins.  We act to the best of our ability and ride on the wave of emotion that is written on the pages.  We feed on the feeling of the other actors on our stage and we are swept up in the roles that were created for us.  We act and we react.  The world is undoubtedly our stage.  During moments of our performance, the spotlights blind us but we act the required part to the best of our ability.

For many, being a performer is a reality that they will never escape.  They feel the need to fit a role and go through the motions day in and day out, never achieving the moment that they can truly break from character and just be who they are.  The simple pleasures in life sometimes escape us while we concentrate on the part we are meant to be playing.

Break from character – rewrite the scene and cast yourself in the role that you want to play.  If you can allow yourself the freedom to escape from the grand performance, even if only briefly, you can play your part with greater honesty on a stage that you created.

Learning from Calvin and Hobbes

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I had posted this earlier in my blogging days…..but I felt it worthy of putting out there again.  I hope you agree.

For as much as I voraciously ingest the written word in novels and short stories, the true expression of human (and stuffed tiger) nature is emphatically represented in the cartoon series of Calvin and Hobbes.  A precocious 5-year old child with the sharp wit and mental fortitude of an adult can sum up in well constructed lines of  illustration, what I strive to achieve in five or more pages of sheer pontificating.

It’s okay to share your feelings.

It’s okay to have an opinion and stand behind it.

It’s okay to dance like nobody is watching.

It’s okay to stretch the boundaries of creativity and individuality and be your authentic self.

And most importantly, it is imperative that you take the time to enjoy your life.

The true mark of who we are as a person, is that we put faith in everything that makes us who we are.  Not everyone will understand every nuance of our being, but the precious few that take the time to realize what makes us special, carve that deep place into the recesses of our hearts and solidify their presence in our existence.

We spend so much time worrying about what other people think and waste those precious hours and minutes being concerned about other people’s opinions instead relying on our own opinion.   With a few shaded lines and some more than realistic dialogue,  the rich imagination of Bill Watterson has seeped into the hearts and minds of many fans, leaving with them the curiosity and keen sense of imagination that Calvin represents.

Inside us all still lurks the wonder of our inner child, the honest feelings we are afraid to show and the sincere desire to be exactly who we are without putting up a false front.  Perhaps we need to create a new story line for ourselves.   Cartoons have the innate ability to be re-drawn until they portray the feeling of the illustrator.   What we fail to recognize is that we are our own illustrator.  We can edit our sketch to truly reflect what we want to convey.

Be your own Calvin.  Don’t let your imagination be diminished by other’s reality.  Be true to yourself, stand by your opinions, and embrace the relationships that you find important, even if others think that they are frivolous.  You only have one life to live and nobody else can live it for you.  Enjoy every moment!

(All images courtesy of Bill Watterson via Google)

What word defines you?

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Tenacious is a word that I have come to love.  It sums up so much of my personality and my desire to succeed.   It gives me an excuse to fall back on when I seem like that proverbial bull in a china shop.  But when you know what you want, why should you not use everything in your arsenal to get it?

Words continue to fuel my fire and the roaring blaze is only intensified by my yearning.  I want to write.  I want more than anything to support my lifestyle by putting my thoughts and images into words, and I want people to get lost in the spectral portraits that I create with language. That tenacity is what keeps me going.  My stubborn refusal to accept my current station in life is evident by the passion I seek to create in the many fables I wish to share.

words

There are many adjectives to choose from when someone asks you to define yourself.   Honest, trustworthy and loyal are among the top words that people will use to exemplify the traits they find most honorable in themselves.  I embody all of those things, but my tenacity is what sets me apart from those benign words.  My ferrous belief that my writing will allow me to have a career by incessantly tapping at this keyboard is the light that beckons me through these dark nights.  It dangles that rabbit that I continue to chase in circles around that unending track.  It gives me hope that my dreams may come to fruition.

Some say words are only words. But words are unique.  Each word that is chosen in a story is selected because of the way it truly reflects the emotion and meaning of the sentence in which it is written.  And just perhaps, those words will lead me through the current reality of my days and into a world I had only once dreamed of – a world in which I was not just a fairy tale character, but the writer of that story.

Tenacious = determined, obstinate, persistent.  Tenacious is the word that defines me.

If you had to choose only one word to describe yourself, what would it be?

Every moment is important

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I was reading the new posts on Freshly Pressed and came across this post from grieftastic about Watching a Friend Die on Facebook.  It was heart wrenching and, in reading all of the moments so poignantly described, it really made me realize that every moment is important.  Every smile, every laugh and every argument combine to define a relationship.   And if we take any of those moments for granted, we are missing the true meaning of that relationship.

I posted yesterday about my best friend who was tragically taken from us far too soon.  She didn’t have a debilitating disease, we didn’t get to mentally prepare for her passing – she was just gone in an instant, and we didn’t get to say goodbye.  But every moment I had with her was precious, every moment is now a treasured memory and every moment was time I will never get back.

I was in the hospital when my dad took his last breath, but that is not the moment I remember.  The moments I cherish, much to my surprise, were the 6:00 am wake up calls on Christmas day.  For the years he was alive, I dreaded the thought of the phone ringing at that ungodly hour, but now, those are the moments with him that I miss the most.

Life is unpredictable and life is callous.  Often the things that we think will last forever can be taken in a second and the things we think should be easy are the biggest challenges.  I have a sadness for people who will never admit to making mistakes.  It is through my mistakes that I have learned more about myself and realized how truly important those moments were.  They helped to shape the person I have become and they will forever be a reminder of the person I could have been and not the person I am now.  They were important moments that gave me time to choose which person I wanted to be.

Every moment in our lives gives us a choice, but that moment will never again present itself in the same way.  It is a singular time in our lives – no two moments will be exactly the same.  You may watch the sun rise every morning for a week, but there will something unique in each moment of each day that will define that sunrise.

Sunrise

Every moment is important.  Knowing that, and truly embracing that, will help us take the time to ingest those precious seconds.  The things that you say cannot be taken back.  The things that you do will leave lasting memories.  And the things you experience will be a part of your history.  Choose wisely in your actions, for they will be the things that people will remember when you’re gone.

Doubting Thomas (oh wait, I am Thomas)

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Self doubt is a debilitating phenomenon.  I’m sure most of us have experienced some form of self-doubt throughout our lives, and perhaps the worst time was during the formidable years in high school.  For those lucky enough to have had a firm belief in who they were during those years, my hat goes off to you.  I was not one of those people.

I spent many years trying to fly under the radar and just fit it.  The image I presented was varied depending on the group of people with whom I was sharing those hallowed hallways.  If I were completely honest about my years in secondary school, I would say that the vast majority of those precious moments was spent trying to be something that I just wasn’t.

Thinking back, though,  I can’t help but wonder, what if I had actually been trying to be something that I truly was?  We have to be our own advocate and firmly believe in the traits that make us unique.  Each of us has a gift.  But each of us has to also realize that we have to be our own cheerleader.  Sure, others may be supportive throughout our journey to rid our reality of those doubts, but if we do not believe in ourselves and our talents, that outer support becomes moot.

I finally have the courage to give myself permission to be proud of the person I have become.  I embrace the talents that I have and no longer am I looking for that gratification from anyone other than myself.  Those years of self-doubt have long been erased and been superseded by a belief that my voice matters.  My voice, no matter what way I choose to share it, makes a difference.

One honest voice is louder than a crowd.  Let yours be heard.

I’ve never been a bunny boiler

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A large percentage of the population has seen the movie – “Fatal Attraction”.  Glenn Close convincingly plays an intelligent, articulate career woman with a penchant for revenge when her love is unrequited.  That is a very politically correct way of describing the insane nature of her character.  She broke into his house and made a soup stock out of their pet rabbit.  She’s a bunny boiler!!

Alarmingly, they do truly exist.  Perhaps not to the point of bringing a pot of water to a scalding boil and stewing the family pet, but they seem to wreak havoc in their own mind-boggling ways.  Obsessive behaviour runs rampant and the clear and decisive nature of a normal human brain becomes more of a chapter in a research book.

Instinctively, most men can spot these women a mile away.  When the behaviour pattern of a woman deviates from her usual likes and dislikes to mirror his – he becomes moderately suspicious.  When she begins randomly showing up in places that he frequents, or becomes obsessed with the hobbies or sports he is into – alarm bells begin going off at top decibel.

I have always felt an inkling of sorrow for these women.  Being able to remain rational during a relationship is difficult enough.  Maintaining that rationale at the conclusion of that relationship is overwhelming, but it can be done.  Sure, you may have wanted, with every fibre of your being, to be a perfect fit for the object of your affection, but it doesn’t always work that way.  Relationships are about learning more about yourself and being able to blend your strengths with another person.  Giving up your interests to absorb theirs will only make you lose yourself in the process.

I do believe that I have gained enough wisdom at my age to know when my attempts are futile, and when the subject of my attention has a vested interest in the qualities that I possess as well.  I have learned to appreciate my wit and intelligence and have faith that they are qualities that someone will appreciate as they are – not a warped version of them to blend into their picture of reality.

If relationships were easy, we would learn nothing about ourselves and what truly makes us happy.  It is the bumps in the road and those unexpected detours that make us truly think about our ultimate happiness and how much of ourselves we are willing to lose in the process.   The failure only comes when you are not true to your heart and to your beliefs.  Becoming something other than your genuine self will only negate the process of discovering true happiness.

Put the bunny down!