Someone wants to know what does it mean to be me?
The short answer I have for that is: I do what the fuck I want.
My in depth explanation: I experiment in order to find things that will help embody my value. When I was younger, I used to question why I couldn't just simply find my happiness within a bottle of vanilla coca cola. As I got older, I realized that although it all could be just that simple, attaching yourself to that one little thing, is self-limiting. We are complex beings, what makes us stand out as a species, is our various ways of living, in addition to our ability to think, feel, and create, but the majority of us are subjected to navigating our paths in a linear fashion while also deducting our worth by attaching it to concepts that limit us. Every emotion is valid and ok to feel, but happiness in particular, is an indicator of how much someone values themselves. Happiness can be achieved in many different ways but lasts about as long as it took to attain it. Happiness really thrives off of something renewable and unconditional self love is the excellent source for it. Happiness is this enigma that we underestimate. It's like a building that most of us have tried to build with a foundation made of illusions and "bricks" (materialistic things that can taken away) until everything crumbles down and you're put in a place to where you realize that this is absolutely not easy at all but that is why we experience. To experiment what works for us and what doesn't. Happiness, is freedom itself, so when I ask you do you value yourself, I really want you to think about how much.
A common block in our confidence to live freely is a pandemic that we do not entirely talk about. Abandonment wounds. It's an infectious disease that spreads throughout our veins and consumes us in a way that revokes our independence and in collateral, losing the things that could make us happy. We lose ourselves in the process by tying our identities and self worth to the root of the cause, therefore, effecting the way that we communicate in our everyday lives. We gain trust issues, we don't take risks, we don't think outside the box because we believe we don't deserve anything more, we tend to build the foundations of our relationships (platonic or romantic) with trauma bonding only to later find out when we snap out of these illusions that we really don't have much in common with the other person at all, we sink into addictions and codependency, or anything else that leads to self destructive behavior because we wallow in this pit of rubble and debris of our past failures and tragedies I'm which we are victimized and believe that we cannot save ourselves or that we don't deserve to. Many of us don't realize that there's an alchemist inside of us that we don't utilize. The ability to grab hold of the remnants of our traumas and crush them with pressure, wet them with our tears formed from mourning over what we thought were broken dreams, mold anew a different direction that leads us forward, and becoming our own light that shines a ray of hope exposing that all is not lost and there will always be a way forward, even if you're stripped from the very thing that you thought was everything to you. That thing could be our material possessions, that thing could be our lover, that thing could be our career, that thing could be the love and validation from our parents, that thing could even be our shattered childhoods. When we limit ourselves to these singular concepts, we are left with an overly powered ego that clouds our vision. We don't see that money comes and go's, that objects are just objects, that we don't need another person to make us whole, our inner childs will always be with us, and that another person's absence whether it be physical, emotional, and even spiritual, doesn't mean that we are unworthy of unconditional love and happiness. Making other people responsible for our own faith and self-value takes away our power to be magician of our lives and constructing it the way that is best for us or minimize our personalities to fit in spaces that suffocate us. We worry ourselves over what other people would think, what they would say, what they would do, and what if they leave? Embrace the possibility of being abandoned when it comes to upgrading your life. Some people are meant to have eras of solitude in their days of living and it's only a bad thing when you've abandoned your own being by not accepting that there's growth and strength in your own individuality. To withstand loneliness and being an outcast is a powerful thing.
"When I ask you do you value yourself, I really want you to think about how much."
I like to think of my ancestors as an example of what it means to be powerful. The trans-atlantic slave trade stripped my people of almost everything but their spirit. Some people have used the Bible as a reason for why they "deserved" to be enslaved for their lifestyle, religious beliefs, and spiritual practices beforehand was too "not of God" and that their demise was bound to happen. In addition, when it came to any sort of planned rebellion, there would unfortunately be a few slaves that wouldn't go forth with any action that could potentially make them free out of fear of what their "master" would do if they found out, that kind of inferiority mindset is another example of how we hand over our power to another concept or another person's hands. To whoever and whatever you worship (it doesn't really matter to me, I'm omnist), I see this common pattern where people ask for their blessings, and once they receive the blessings, they verbally or even internally state how much they don't feel worthy of them or the love that they receive from their deity. Moreover, when it comes to any mishap that happens within a person's life or any worldwide conflict, I notice this pessimism, tendency to gaslight, and lack of compassion for others because supposedly it must be an omen that we are facing a deity's wrath for straying too far from their ways. Throughout the tyranny that my ancestors faced and the belief that allegedly God had abandoned them as a punishment, they still had the tenacity to know that they deserved their freedom and that it was worth fighting for regardless of the possibility of them being in purgatory in the after life for rebelling.
We talk so much about how this generation of American black people is lost because we don't match the triumph that those before us had to fight for the rights that we have now. There's this saying that the pen is mightier than the sword and of course I feel that both are equal but are meant for two different occasions. We still need our sword to fight racial injustice and we still need our sword to break through barriers from what holds us back from living in security. But what I feel is that some of us are misinterpreting our ancestors' greatest wish. With the freedom that we have now, we cannot honestly fight our entire lives, life is too short and that is exhausting. We are not using our pen enough. Creative expression is our way of releasing so much that we endure in this world. Furthermore, make room for not just spending time with our loved ones and the things that we love doing, but also for play. Live carefree. Love who you want. Practice whatever religion that you want. Eat what you want. Listen to what you want. Live out your passions not just fight for them. Work by doing what you love. Not everything has to be heavy on your shoulders because applying so much pressure in trying to live up to other people's standards creates nothing but existential apathy. Romanticize your freedom, what you have, and what you are because being happy and your ability to choose IS their greatest dream behind all of the sacrifices that they have made.
I never had a distinct answer on what I truly wanted to be when I grew up so more than likely I'll have multiple careers. But everytime I thought about what exactly that I wanted to do, I emphasized how much I want to make a positive change in this world. I was always tech savvy and saw that as a beneficiary for my ambitions. I thought that getting a computer science degree, becoming the first black woman to have her own smartphone company, and doing something innovative with technology would liken to what my ancestors have done and make my community proud. I could have fulfilled this, but I lost sight of the goal. I was too focused on my desire to be successful and financially secure that I didn't stay true to myself to know that there are many ways to reach my destination but to take the route that resonates mostly with what I really wanted to do. I was limiting myself with this one concept and deteriorating my own wellbeing over the stress of wanting to achieve something so bad. I love to figure things out but my enthusiasm for these programming classes lowered as I realized that I wasn't that passionate about them like I thought. But I see this loss as a gift because I experienced to experiment. What works and what doesn't work. There are many things that I want to do and start but I cannot reduce myself as just a tycoon, I genuinely want to help people and to be able to create something that's impactful worldwide that'll actually be meaningful.
Everyone should do the same and I know it's not easy because most of us were conditioned that the formula to having an ideal lifestyle is to be traditional when there is no depth in being traditional. Our paths are not meant to be alike, they don't require some of the things that our society and are parents have stated, and things just simply don't work out no matter how much we've planned, but the way out is to think outside of what's traditional and to value ourselves enough to know that we are capable and deserve something better. So what does it mean to be me? I don't do anything that anyone else can't do which is to do what the fuck you want. Experience life to experiment and know that anything you feel is a mess in your life or interferes with who you are as an individual, you value yourself enough to know that you have the power to turn around these things in your life to make yourself happy. When you feel there isn't a space for you on earth that makes you feel accepted and loved then you create that space despite the things and people that have left your life whether that be a friend, a lover, a father, a mother, or even a God.
