Am I really happy or is it a mask that I wear?
Who is really there for me (unconditionally) like I am for them?
If gravity lapsed for just a moment and I dropped off the face of the earth, would anyone even know I was gone?
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| Tru Essence |
Don't mistake honesty for being tough.
Though it may be easier to cower and lie to people, lying also absorbs unnecessary energy that I can't afford to waste. When I'm honest with someone about how I feel, how they are acting or anything in general, it's not to make some sort of stance on how tough I can be. Being honest with people is frightening at times. You may lose friends, distance family, lose a love, or even end up in a very lonely place because you decided to tell the truth about something, someone or just say how you truthfully feel. And just to clarify, I don't mean like those condescending people who are smug and trying to let you know that they think they are better than you. Those people get joy over pointing out what they feel are your flaws. I'd rather edify you in your triumphs.
People feel attacked even when you aren't attacking. Some people can't recognize when you are actually supporting them because somewhere between the words leaving your mouth and entering their ears, the message goes from positive to negative and the worse part is when you have braced to say what needs to be said and when it's received the opposite way, you really don't know how to recover it so you remain silent and that misunderstanding creates a new problem that the other person appears not to want to resolve. In that moment of annoyance, they have the opportunity to act in a way that they want and justify their actions with your own words.
So, you choose to be an ass because you didn't like what I said? Somehow, that doesn't help the situation.
In situations like that, I feel that people have their own agenda and are just waiting for an opening to give them an excuse to behave a certain way. I've seen it over and over again so this is very familiar behavior to me.
I have received harsh criticism about almost every aspect of my life from spectators who are only watching from the outside. I have accepted the criticism of those closest to me and have taken that it and did many many nights of self analysis. I've been told I'm talented, smart, creative, beautiful, funny, and other things and I accept those things graciously. However, I have been told that I'm lazy, unfocused, don't reach my potential, fearful, lack disciple, that I think I know everything, and other things that I hear and try to see if there is any truth in them before I react.
Bottom line is whether the person giving the criticism is doing so out of love or out of petty jealousy or just trying to hurt your feelings, we have the right to react but your reaction distinguishes your character, not the character of the person giving the critique.
You ever get the feeling that it's you and not them.
Some days I still feel like that teenager who's afraid of the harshness of the world. I think we all are just looking for someone or something to love to keep us internally grounded or we feel like we'll float away. God, people, things, drama; we all have something we hold onto to keep us wanting to wake up each day. Unfortunately, many have lost that desire and thus deciding waking up again was a lost cause for them. My heart aches for each soul that felt or feels that way. I understand that feeling. I have felt it. I fight it everyday by searching with intent to find someone and something to love. We are in a battle for life and soul sustainability.
With that said, sometimes I think I'm so inwardly focused that I can't see beyond my own feelings, even though I feel that I have been a good friend to others. I do have to ask myself if it's me that has issues with people or do I pick the wrong friends or if the one I feel is my best friend doesn't love me enough to call me his best friend. I would go crazy trying to figure out how other people feel so I try to only focus on what I feel and maybe that's a bit selfish and maybe even considered arrogant at times but I'm just Tru and there's not much I can do about it. I've recently gotten in the habit of telling myself to let things go. It's apart of my personal 'Pick Your Battle" campaign. In these cases, it is I who chose how and when to react and I don't let others pull me into a reaction for their purpose.
I wish life was much simpler.
Some people don't want you to have faith in them.
When people feel that you will disapprove some of the things they say and do and will pick a fight just so you can lose a little more faith in them. By doing this they feel you won't hold them accountable for anything if you know they are not dependable. This is a convenient way to get off the hook for being a decent person. I have learned that people hate looking into mirrors held by other people.
Damned if you do; Damned if you don't.
Yeah. I really don't have anything else to say about that. It's self-explanitory.
From a distance, that bottle floating in a water just looks like another ripple.
I was riding to work on the bus yesterday and as we crossed the bridge I looked over the water and notices a small thing in the rippling water that looked like a plastic bottle. Now of course I'm thinking of the environmental implications of the bottle being in the water but I noticed that if you didn't stare at it long enough, you would think it was simply another ripple in the water.
Being the person that I am, I started thinking how some of us are like floating bottles being mistaken for ripples in the water. We walk, live, talk, exist among a sea of content people who are satisfied with the status quo but every now and then someone looks hard enough and notices that we are not like everyone else. Up close, it's obvious that we don't belong but from a distance we blend in, unknowingly, to be mistaken as just another part of the scene to be taken for granted. I'm painting stripes on my bottle. I bet you'll see me from a distance next time.
