“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” — Thomas Merton
Everywhere we look there’s a gaping hole between the true self and the false self.
Politics — blah, blah bloody blah, where no one dare speak their mind for fear they’ll be shouted down, ridiculed and eventually lose their place at the high table of ‘I’ve-no-opinion-of-my-own’.
Business — a complete lack of authenticity.
Life — we’re so beaten down by the system that we end up fitting in for fear we’ll lose our line in the money-orientated queue.
Is it any wonder that so many people slowly die?
As Thomas Merton writes so eloquently in New Seeds of Contemplation, “…the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”
Of course, you might already be able to put your finger on the pulse and understand where True North points, but you’re likely in the minority. For so many, they’ve lost touch with the inner child, or at least the person they were born to be.
I know the feeling…and I know it only too well.
For a long time I lived a lie; namely I wore a false mask in the hope of fitting in and being accepted.
Or at least to the extent that I know that the less I show up as my true self, the more corrupted I feel.
What about you?
How close to the real version of you, do you live with every day?
In the end, nothing that I say is going to make a difference.
your journey is not my journey
No, you need to find a way of being comfortable in your own skin in every situation.
Absent that what’s the point?