Reinventing Yourself
My philosophy for life (attached)
I tossed my philosophy for life into the ocean like a child throws pennies into a fountain.
The sky shifted to overcast.
A grin formed on my face.
Rain fell from the sky.
I put on my hoodie and walked home with no purpose in mind.
One foot moving only to beat out the next foot.
It wasn’t a race against time.
I had nowhere to go and nothing on my to-do list.
It was a race with no finish line.
And I hated it.
Yet I walked fast for a man that had nowhere to be.
I wasn’t the only one.
We were all running in circles, thinking our lives were headed somewhere, someplace, anyplace.
We just wanted to get away and escape.
Escape from what?
Idk.
Maybe our jobs, our town, the thoughts stuck in our brains… or maybe we just wanted to escape from the distance that stood between where we stood today and where we wanted to stand next year.
I couldn’t call it. I could only live it.
And live it, I did.
Or at least, I tried.
But eventually the burden grew too heavy...
So I tossed my philosophy for life into the ocean. And slowed my step. I stopped living so fast. It felt good to take a break. For I had lived my entire life with my foot on the gas. Now I could hit the pause button on life. And I did.
I stopped working, writing, building.
Instead, I smelled the roses. Took walks in nature. Partied in new cities. Read on subway trains heading nowhere. Jumped out of blue skies.
But I still wasn’t content. I was happy (always have been, always will be). But I wasn’t content.
Why?
Because I had turned my back on the one philosophy that had got me everything I wanted. And then some.
Top of the world or bottom of the ocean. Don’t live in the middle.
I went all in. I got the world.
I went all out. I got lazy.
I dabbled, nothing happened.
It was time to rediscover my philosophy for life.
So I woke early one morning -- put on my clothes and running shoes and travelled via cars and trains to reach the spot.
It looked different from when I had last seen it.
But as soon as I saw it, the voice inside my brain silenced to a whisper.
I felt internal silence. Looked up at the sky - saw the clouds forming, heard the birds singing, and felt the feeling inside me saying, “It’s time.”
So I jumped into the ocean, sunk to the bottom, and let out my final breath.
Just before night shifted to day, life shifted to death, and the old me shifted to the new me - I saw my philosophy for life discarded underneath a pile of half chipped rocks:
“Call me crazy, but I’ll die for what I stand for because I refuse to choose the safe life. Break me, tear me apart, punch me in the face, let me be beaten, challenged, and altered by life. Let my life be touched and let me touch as many lives as I can for I will always be human, for there is no reason on earth to be scared of yourself. After all, life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skin in sideways totally worn out while shouting, “Holy fuck, what an experience!”
I felt the water overtaking my lungs. The old me let out his final breath -- choked and died. The new me sprang from the bottom of the ocean and back up to dry land.
He let out a roar.
The sky shifted to sunlight. A smile formed on my face. Life radiated from my pores.
I took off my hoodie and walked home with purpose in mind.
One foot moving to beat out the next foot.
It was a race against time.
I had places to go, businesses to create, and people to help.
It was a race with a finish line.
And I loved it.
-
I said all that to say this:
When the current you stops serving you, change. You hold the keys to your jail cell. Just because you were “one way” for xx years, doesn’t mean you have to stay that way for the next xx years.
Quiet the mind. Open the heart. Find the real in you.
Then?
Start living in accordance with what you know to be true.
Day in. Day out.
Before you know it, you’ll look into the mirror...
And won’t find the old you staring back.
But the true you.
Your friend,
/tej