Every day, I log at least five miles of walking. In addition to helping with stress relief, I also mentally compose a lot of posts in my head during my daily constitutional. From this, as I sat down to peck out today’s post, two ideas kept filtering to the top of my consciousness:
“To thine own self be true.” — Wm. Shakespeare from Hamlet
and
“I wanna tell you a little secret; being ‘The One’ is just like being in love. No one needs to tell you you are in love, you just know it, through and through.” — The Oracle, to Neo from The Matrix
From this, I draw a couple of conclusions. The first is that we cannot manifest or embody something we do not recognize or honor within ourselves. We represent a single Being in a sea of Others. Spending our days immersed in the stream of life, we must operate within society as a moving, living, breathing component of said society. At the same time, we must retain our autonomy and sense of self in order to contribute fully to society.
An accountability filter that I use quite often when presented with a choice is to ask myself, “Can you live with yourself if you make this decision?” Because it’s true: of the billions of people now walking the planet, you are the only person who is going to be with you for the rest of your life. Can you sleep at night after making your decisions? Can you look yourself in the mirror?
If you can’t, you are not independent. You are not true to yourself. You are tethered to regret or some other emotion that keeps you from it. To move past this roadblock, do the work to figure out why your conscious isn’t comfortable (e.g. make amends, release a debt, forgive someone) and take another look in the mirror. Repeat as necessary.
Secondly, the mentality of being independent just ‘is.’ You either are or you’re not. I can’t tell you if you are; you just are. It’s something that’s difficult for me to articulate in a written form, but this version of independence is a healthy detachment from the opinions of others.
To use Morpheus’ quote from the Matrix, “There is a difference between knowing The Path and walking The Path.” What’s really going to bake your noodle is that it’s difficult to discern just exactly when you transition from one state of Being to another.
One day, you’ll go from stocking up on self-help books, collecting quotes on your bathroom mirror and repeating affirmations to just doing. The self help books, mantras, sticky notes and quotes are all psychological, spiritual and mental training wheels used to support your progress as you re-route and reprogram the synapses in your brain.
At the risk of using just one more reference, if you’ve seen the movie Forrest Gump, you will probably remember the look on his face when realizes that he’s running without his braces on. THAT’S what being independent is. You are trucking along, when all of a sudden you look down and realize, “Holy crap! I’m doing this!”
Trust yourself. Move from faith to action.
P.S. Every Sunday, I publish a free weekly newsletter called the 3 Minute Reset, which includes life lessons, life hacks and treats. To subscribe, click here.
