I feel calm this morning. Maybe it’s the hour of extra sleep I got, but I doubt it. I was sure that if i began, that i had something to say this morning. That’s at once a great and bizarre feeling. As I sit here I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know that if I press on, it will come and that makes me physically giddy, a feeling at once satisfying and exciting.
I’m not an over documenter of the present for some reason. I wonder if one day I’ll look back and wonder if I should have added in more timestamps. Sure, I do some but not enough to give a rigidity to time and place. Maybe I’m trying to escape time sand place and let go of the things that surround me. Let them wash away the daily, the news flashes, the politics, the nonsense we spend so much time hemming and hawing over the “none of this actually matters” stuff.
We spend a lot of our lives aligning ourselves and defining ourselves with the opinions of others. It’s understandable, we want to be able to find comfort in commonality. To say “Hey, I believe what you believe. We are alike, let’s go see Jimmy Buffett together.” Church, politics, movies, music, philosophy, sports, fandom. On and on it goes. Together. Together. Identity.
I spent the morning yesterday working on a piece about heroes. How I couldn’t come up with almost any, especially not in sports. I quit writing the post because it kept sounding like I was saying you were dumb to have heroes that didn’t directly impact you. Who the hell am I to say that joy you felt from watching Kurt Rambis or Kobe Bryant (practically the same player) is misplaced? If nothing else, my writing has at least softened my judginess. I mean, I’m likely still judging, I just won’t allow a full whizzing of your Cheerios just because I think something you don’t. I digress.
I want my kids and you and me to have heroes and to identify, but I want it to be different. I want you to be your own hero. To find strength and confidence from within. To lead and give someone else something to identify with.
Tough ask? Maybe. But how often do you sit and question what you are about? Can you define it? Have you stopped recently to think about what you want to be to you kids, your spouse, your friends, or even better. To a stranger?
What do I stand for?
What’s important to teach?
Am I even keeled and consistent?
Is what I say going to make the world generally better or worse?
What am I about?
I’d be willing to bet that a lot of us haven’t stopped and considered this in years and yet it could be the most important thing we do.
You can look to others to be your hero. That’s cool if you need it.
Give someone something to identify with today.
Be your own hero.
#hugsandhi5s
