Who I am. Who I'm not.

Why do we always want to be what we aren't?

This thought is one I struggle with a lot, but for the last few weeks I've been struggling with it more often than not. Logically, I know that being something else won't make me happy. I know that I can't become a certain person to attain the happiness or the contentment that I need. I KNOW that that happiness and that contentment is available right this second, if I would just reach out and grab a hold of it. But illogically, emotionally, humanly, I still find myself seeing someone else, seeing what they can do, reading what they wrote, hearing what they have to say, and yearning to be more like that person in order to be complete, in order to be fulfilled.

Let me start with the idea

of wanting what we don't have,

or wanting to be what we aren't.

Here's a simple example that makes all of this easiest for me to understand. Let's say you're a brunette, and you think that if you could only be blonde, you would be happy with yourself. You think that if you become a blonde you will suddenly be beautiful, you'll be happier because you'll be more confident, people will look at you and think what you've always wanted them to think, and in all of that you'll find contentment and joy. So, you go to the best hair salon and go blonde. You look like a completely new person, and you get all the reactions you hoped for. For a few days, you're on a happy-high.

And then the new wears off.

Your blonde hair becomes the norm, and you see a girl with brown hair walk by and think, if only your hair were dark again, you could be a natural beauty like her, and then you'd be happy.

You see where I'm going with this.

That is a really simple example of what I'm talking about. We think, well, I think, that if I can only be what I'm not (thin, athletic, a great singer, a guitar player, a pianist, a painter, et cetera), if I could only achieve those goals of being the very things that I'm not, THEN I would be complete. But I hope from my hair-example that it's clear why that philosophy, that idea, is faulty.

It's easier to want to be what we aren't,

than to try and live in the fullness

of what we are,

of who we are.

I'm not thin, or athletic, or a great singer, or a guitar player, or a pianist, or a painter, but I AM a writer, a friend, a thinker, a coffee drinker, a doodler. It's easier to pick at the things I'm not and say, "Why can't this be me? What's so wrong with me that I don't live up to these things?" than to say, "This is who I am, and I'm happy about that. I'm proud of that."

I have been given all of the ingredients for happiness. I have been given a life that is my own, that is unique, to live, to experience, to BE in. And in that life, no matter what the particulars are, I have all that I need to be content. No matter what your circumstances are--and I know that some circumstances are so difficult, so hard, so painful that it's hard to breathe, let alone look at the bright side--no matter what they are, there is happiness there, even if it's very hard to see.

I want to want to be what I am, who I am.

I'm not saying that, just because I've thought about it some, and written about it some, that I'll be forever changed, but it's part of the process. To be aware of it, and to try and live and be who I am, rather than who I'm not.