A few years ago, I decided that my key, core, primary goal was to become who I really am. Find this elusive idea of “true self”, and then find a way to live as that person in every single sleeping and waking moment, as much as I possibly could.
I am, of course, still working out the details.
The really funny thing is that I didn’t think I had this far to go. I’ve usually been a pretty introspective person, so I didn’t think it would take so many years and so many layers to get even as far as I have. Yet in the meantime, I’ve gone farther in my life than I thought at the time it would be possible to go. Turns out that in putting so much of my resources into living as the real me, life has really come together in ways I never expected.
1920’s vaudeville singer Margaret Young had this figured out long before me:
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.
– Margaret Young
Nynia in the Now 