Insecurities

I now believe that my own personal insecurities should no longer be something to be feared, but rather that they should be considered as unique opportunities for personal growth and self-exploration. So now, every time I feel insecure about something, I try to think of it as an opportunity to grow and I remind myself to reach for it. 

My insecurities really are just opportunities at the ready, seemingly a hair’s breadth out of reach, waiting for me to muster up the courage to stretch out and fully embrace my own socially driven, individualized, personal self-shame. A shame I used to fear as if it were a daingerous and poisonous serpent that deserved as wide of a berth as I could possibly provide. A shame to be absolutely avoided at all costs. A shame that used to rule over my very being. 

But as I have now come to understand, my insecurities and the shame associated with them, they aren’t as daingerous as I had first perceived. In fact as I’ve explored this space, I’ve found that the opposite is true. They are actually opportunities waiting for those who seek compassion and understanding for all walks of life. They represent the infinite number of possibilities for those who seek connection with other living things over personal, petty, self-perceptions like; self-preservation, self-reproduction, and self-gain. They are the opportunities waiting for the true hero inside all of us. The individual who accepts all. 

It’s my belief that those who are comfortable with their insecurities are the true living heroes of this world and I would like to thank my own personal heroes who helped guide me to understanding this personal, newfound truth. 

I feel like at every step of the way these two individuals have repeatedly proven over and over again that they are “true” and stoic to their own unique individuality in their own way. They are examples to me that conforming to the “norm” is not a requirement for how to human well and they are both bright shining unique stars by their own right. They are the examples in my life that I now know I have chosen as my own personal life role models. And I am happy to consider them as close friends and personal heroes. 

So, thank you Michelle B. and Skyler S. for this paradigm shift, this understanding, this way of accepting others. You’re both examples of the anomalies I encountered in my life that didn’t fit into the belief system that was being handed down and force fed into my malleable, young, curious, and inquisitive mind. 

You’re anomalies that I have kept my eyes on as we’ve known each other for the past ten plus years. Anomalies that represented some of the unresolved paradoxes of my life. Anomalies that kept repeatedly reminding me that there was something not quite right with my eerily adopted worldview. 

A world view, and a belief system, that my failure of a father desperately clings to any time he let’s his own insecurities get the better of him. The same way I learned how to behave every time I let my insecurities get the better of me. A world view that asks you to attack things you perceive as threats to your identity just simply due to them being different than yourself. A world view for truly cowardly creatures. The world view of the “WE”, the “US”, and the perceived “ruling majority”. Not the world view of independent thought. 

I feel that according to what I was being taught; both of your beautiful, unique, and independent lives are supposedly worthless, and the sum of which should total to less than the spare change in my car. And this is mostly just due to completely inconsequential things about you like the length of your hair, the tattoos on your skin, or what activities you’ve decided you enjoy for yourself. 

I know now what it means to have an inalienable right; The right to choose, value, and enjoy the things in your life that YOU want to, regardless of how many around you differ, and you should NEVER be shamed for doing that. 

It’s my opinion you both are courageously living in beautiful defiance of people like my father. People who would rather have me, and any within their little sphere-of-influence, shame you for being you. People who seek to put down others simply due to their own weak self-image, self-esteem issues, and/or personal insecurities. People who fear change and fear that they are being outgrown, outmatched and outlived by the new generations each passing year. 

People, who I believe, must feel so awful about themselves for giving up their own rights so long ago, that they now take out their personal life dissatisfaction on those around them. Especially towards those who actually dare to stand up and live free as they individually and personally see fit. 

I believe that these people, like my poor father, have been living in fear of their own lives for so long that they have fully internalized, accepted, and completely resigned their fate, their very spirit, their life, their volition, to the will of the “US”, and the “WE”. Further, I believe that they have given themselves up so fully, that they now fear those that don’t believe they must conform to their fancy-pants club, whatever it is that their oh-so-special club represents. What miserable, vile, and internally corrupt individuals. The individuals who, like I now understand myself to have been living for the past 36 years, have completely resigned their individual rights, their volition, and their very spirit to that of the greater whole – The Collective Soul.

You’re both shining examples to me on how to human well. And I feel like you both, in different ways, played hugely significant roles in my quest to get me my life back!

I love you both and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

-jamesdainger