To Thine Own Self Be True

Shakespeare may have penned the phrase, but it’s a truth that’s existed before he wrote Hamlet, and one that has taken me a long time to comprehend.  I haven’t yet mastered it, but I’m working on it.

I’m finding the only way finding and being true to myself is possible …is by being completely honest with myself.  I am more than capable of lying to myself. I was a master at it.  If I were to bet or guess, I would say that a majority of us lie to ourselves quite often, rarely identifying and accepting the truth, because truth hurts.  Truth is hard to take sometimes. Truth is hard to face.  But, as the Good Book says, Truth will set you free. It really will.  It won’t make your problems magically disappear, but it will set you free so that you can begin the journey of living an honest life. 

How can we live a true and honest life if we won’t face the truths in our lives? We want and demand truth from others, but how hypocritical of us if we don’t FIRST find, accept, and acknowledge truth within ourselves?  We are living in such an enabled society, where we even lie to ourselves because the truth is harsh and a hard pill to swallow.  It’s not OUR fault we are fat, lazy, and unhealthy and out of shape.  It’s society’s fault for making it too hard to eat healthy, by making poor meal choices more affordable and convenient.  It’s the Fast Food and marketing industries’ fault for my lack of self-control and discipline.  It is my cultural and socio-economical circumstances’ fault that I can’t afford personal trainers, gym memberships, and beautiful parks and recreation centers to work out. It’s our genetics’ fault that I have to work twice as hard as my skinny counterpart.  It’s time’s fault I have poor time management because I put other things in a higher priority  - like watching tv, sitting in restaurants, playing video games, chatting online or scrolling through social media outlets.   I have kids and don’t have the time and energy and money and opportunity.

We all have excuses.  We all cling to them when we want to justify our behavior, and then we moan and complain when we have to face the consequences of those decisions.  That’s the truth of the matter.

We all have the same 24 hours a day.  We all have obstacles in the path of what we need or desire in our lives. It may seem unfair when we try to compare ourselves to others and their opportunities.  Most often we tell the biggest lie to ourselves – “if I had the same opportunity as them ...then I would.”  LIAR.  You don’t do it now – you won’t do then – you won’t do it even if you had EVERY advantage because you are NOT true to yourself FIRST.

When we truly have a passion for something, we make it a priority.  When we make something a priority, we have to take a truthful evaluation of where we were, where we are, and where we want to be – and THEN make some REALISTIC, honest, truthful goals – and then do them.  DO THEM.  One day at a time. One step at a time. One victory at a time.  One choice after the next, after then next, after the next – and NEVER GIVE UP. Don’t focus on the big goal, put all your focus on just making it to the next goal.  Be faithful in the little things …and you will be the master of many things.  But be unfaithful in the little things, you will also be unfaithful in the big things, and master nothing.  

Success isn’t that you’ve gained something.  True success is when something has cost you – something you had to sacrifice a piece of yourself to obtain – and being true to yourself along the journey.  THAT’s the true success of anything. 

Life sucks sometimes.  I mean it really, painfully, soul-crushing, can’t breathe, pushes you to the edge sucks sometimes.  I’ve had my share – and I know there’s more to come later.  But the best things I’ve ever accomplished in this life is learning to love myself, learning to see myself for who I really am, and then learning to be proud of the woman I am.  It isn’t my MBA, or my writing awards, or my publications, or my public praise, or anything I’ve accomplished that makes me proud of myself.  No, that confidence and pride comes from knowing what it took to get there – knowing the truths I’ve had to face – and being true to ME.

You want to get in shape – face your truth and stop making excuses. 

You want a better job – face your truth and stop making excuses.

You want a better relationship – face your truth and stop making excuses.

You want to be happy – face your truth and stop making excuses.

You want to succeed – face your truth and stop making excuses.

To thine own self be true!

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Monday Morning Coffee

Most people are not morning people, and even more so not Monday morning people.  I'm one of those irritating happy morning people, especially on a Monday.  Why?  I have a theory. 

Shit happens, but I’m still going to hope for a better day.  As Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage and all the people are merely players." All life is drama.  The differences are the types of dramas we find ourselves and how they affect us.  I hear people say all the time they don't want any 'drama' in their lives.  Well, too damned bad, because as long as we live and breathe there is drama.  We can't escape it.  We can try, but it won't work.  I've tried many times. I've told myself on many occasions that my life would be better if I could stop feeling and the drama would leave me alone. Yeah, but that's bullshit.  I knew it was bullshit when I said it, and knew that saying it wasn't going to change anything.

While we may not be able to control the presence of drama in our lives, we do have control on the kind of drama we allow, we run toward, we desire, and to which we choose to run away. My choice would be the hero’s tale, but I often myself wrapped up in a tragedy.  I desire the epic romance, but often find myself in a myopic comedy.  I have been hurt deeply many times, but even still I have ‘hope’ for a better day, a better tomorrow. My trust may be broken, my faith may be weak, and my expectation may be so vapid that it disappears with the slightest breeze, but I still cling to hope for a better story, MY story.  Why, because I love myself.  I love the woman I am. I don’t deny my mistakes. I don’t ignore my faults. I don’t pretend.  I love with all that I have, all that I am, because I know what it’s like to be unloved and unwanted.  I know how rejection cuts so deeply it leaves a scar that burns.  I know what it’s like to look into the eyes of someone you love so deeply, to see no love staring back.  I know that pain.  I know what it feels like to cling to that dying hope that things will change, that love will overcome, or that the story doesn’t have to end the way feared.  But, I can only hold onto that false hope for so long, because there’s another hope that is seeded deeper within my soul I won’t allow to be sacrificed in its place.  And it is THAT hope that gets me up every morning, especially on a Monday morning.  

Regardless of how the day ends, I lift my warm cup of coffee to this glorious Monday morning, holding fast to the hope that this day will be the day that leads me down the road of MY story, that it be filled with MY drama, and that I feel all the love and beauty I’ve been searching for my whole life.  I already walk in my story, and I already have all that I desire, because it’s wrapped up in that woman I see in the mirror every morning.  The only difference is my ability to see her – and that is my hope – that I see her more clearly every day and don’t allow the drama and hurts of the world to hide her from me.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Letter to an Asshole by Jeff Suwak

Every once in a while a story comes along that really gets me excited, makes me want to jump up and shout into the air, 'damn straight'.  Well, this article is one of those that had me nodding through the whole thing. Author Jeff Suwak writes an illuminating essay that focuses on 'lower class' writers such as Charles Bukowski, Upton Sinclaire and Jack Kerouac as compared to those recommended by the literary elite among the upper class snobs such as Shakespere, Byron and Chaucer.  When I read something, I look for something I can relate to, something that gives me hope to pull me out of the mess I've created, not read a bunch of pretty words that don't mean shit in the real world.  This article speaks to me the way Suwak says that Bukowski speaks to him.

Check it out, folks.

Letter to an Asshole by Jeff Suwak

http://praguerevue.com/ViewArticle?articleId=3427 

"An asshole once told me that Shakespeare wrote predominantly about royals and the like because common people lacked the insight and intellectual subtlety needed to illuminate the human condition. His assessment was not restrained solely to the unwashed masses of Elizabethan England, but was instead used to bolster his point that the works of people like Charles Bukowski were flawed by nature and devoid of any literary or social merit.

His bone of contention was that writers like Bukowski glorified the ignorance of the lower classes, and that they could offer no worthwhile existential perspective. I found the whole conversation to be an absurd crock of horseshit, but the asshole also happened to be my English professor, so I kept my mouth shut and walked away. Just give me my A, Professor Asshole, so that I can get the hell out of here and get into grad school."

To read more, please visit the Prague Revue at http://praguerevue.com/ViewArticle?articleId=3427

If you like the article - please hit the 'like' button and share it with all your friends.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray