a man’s main task in life is to know who he is

and then to know who he can become

For most of our lives we were who other people told us to be.  ‘Be a good boy…..’ my parents told me.  ‘You will have to work harder than this…..’  my teachers said.  ‘You need to put in more hours…..’ my bosses ordered.  ‘You should dress differently….. my ‘friends’ advised.   And unconsciously I made the choices to do what I was told.  Eventually, some of us were unlucky enough to make the unconscious choice to go along with whatever we thought our girl / significant other / partner wanted.  In becoming what other people wanted us to be we stopped making our own decisions, our whole reality became skewed, and we lost ourselves.

In my life I’ve made a lot of bad choices because I didn’t know who was, didn’t know what I wanted, and didn’t know who and what I wanted to become.  The good choices I made were all logical, dispassionate, intellectual ~ if I could weigh it, measure it, or count it, then it would work for me.  The bad choices were all emotional, based on desires, gratification, wants, and lusts.  All of those choices turned to dross.

A while ago I made the conscious decision to be myself, and that meant throwing away a lot of crap, in fact it meant throwing away almost everything of who and what I used to be.  That’s OK because it’s easier to build something from the beginning than it is to modify something to try and make it work.

Dare to be what your best self knows you ought to be; dare to be a bigger human being than you have ever been.  ~  Norman Vincent Peale

Some say that when people change promises are broken.  And, that if you insist on going your own way, then you will go alone.  All  I know is that I will be myself, no matter what.  I will decide for myself just who I am and who and what I want to become.

~

jack collier

jackcollier7@talktalk.net

this was part of who I truly was and am, and other people didn’t like it