(New Blog Post: Take 30 something…)
If I give myself credit for effort and time spent, I am blogging every day. If I measure by my visible output, what you see, I am a failure.
Funny isn’t it how perception is everything and nothing.
I love words; their power and majesty, the weapon of choice for budding dictators and wise teachers; their subtle color and sound when spoken by poets and lovers.
I am afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid of saying the right thing in the wrong way.
Sometimes the one brave thing a day I do is getting out of bed and still trying to just be.
Today, it was facing down and identifying my own emotions.
My emotions are many, tumultuous, contradictory, and sometimes even unpleasant and even then still mine. I readily admit to anxiety. However, I rarely own my anger and generally squelch my fear. I make it a general rule to do one thing a day that scares me. And I don’t understand the purpose of angry displays.
Maybe its a little late in my life to be really learning this on a ‘gut’ level, but Fear and Anger have their functions too. They tell me I am stuck in one of those tiny mazes again where I need to consider a new option. They tell me I have taken on too much, or that I might be in physical danger or maybe that I need more personal boundaries.
What they don’t mean is that I need to be less compassionate. What they don’t mean is that I need to be selfish or cruel.
Perhaps it is time to adjust my perception of myself and measure myself on intention and effort, not just visible product.
Love is the song I will always sing, because fear is what kills us, kills democracy, kills hope. Learning to still love myself as unconditionally as I love my brother, is hard, and frightening.
But as always, love will win.