The human ego is fragile, the human is resilient.  The human being doesn’t care for what others think.  Its purpose is to fulfill itself and grow and achieve.  To create and explore and have fun.  The ego worries about how we appear and what others think.  It is a luxury to have the time to worry about what others think, because if that is the greatest issue we have, we aren’t stuck in survival.  We often equate status and appearance to survival.  If we don’t fit in, it is a social or professional death.  Neither of those is life ending—it is merely the end of that KIND of life, or that phase of life.  We can always rebuild.  So many times life doesn’t go how we think it will—and it isn’t necessarily meant to.  The human body will survive being told no.  It will survive doors closing in our lives.  Again, it isn’t the end of our life, it is the end of that way of life—and that is a key indicator of growth.  The human is able to withstand so much more than we think we can.  So often we equate discomfort as a threat.  The goal of life isn’t to be comfortable—Gary Brecka says that aging is the active pursuit of comfort.  And there is truth to that.  The more we seek to make ourselves comfortable rather than fulfill our purpose, we lose touch with the ability to make our body function properly.  The ego tells us we need to be right, we need to be comfortable and we ignore the body screaming at us that it wants to move, to be free.

I’ve been privileged to witness a wide spectrum of experiences.  I’ve seen people living their lives to the absolute fullest, in the complete expression of who they are and I’ve witnessed the death of dreams, the end of a way of being.  I’ve witnessed people deciding to throw it all away and start over again.  I’ve felt the calling to do that for myself as well.  I’ve also been privileged to befriend people who have pulled themselves out of the mud a million times.  They are constant reminders that, with support, we can do anything.  They are constant reminders that we need to keep life in perspective because things happen, whether we understand the reason or not—life happens and we have to deal with it as it comes.   I have a friend who has been through some unimaginable scenarios, and I’ve seen her smile nearly every day I’ve known her.  I’ve never seen anyone be brought down by so much still be so strong.  It’s not just taking it on the cuff, there is never even a question of, “Why did this happen?”  This isn’t to say that things are perfect—people with that level of trauma still compensate in some way.  My friend has a tendency to need to always be right no matter the subject.  It’s partially an ego thing because she feels safe being right and she likes the attention, but also a defense mechanism.  She can control what she knows, she can’t control what happened to her.  Plus a history of questionable decisions makes her feel like she needs to prove she is smart.

The point is this: the human being isn’t meant to protect the idea of itself.  It is meant to protect it’s body and live in the fullest version of who they are.  We are meant to trust that we are safe enough to be who we are because the world needs that—we wouldn’t be here if that weren’t true.  We don’t need to spend time protecting an image because we will never be able to control how people perceive us no matter how carefully we curate the image.  We are all subject to interpretation based on other people’s experiences.  It’s pointless to spend time trying to be a certain way or to try and control how people see us because it is up to them in the end.  We can let go of the ego and survive—we can’t let go of our being.  Success looks different to everyone because we have different goals.  There is no way to quantify or qualify what is the “Best” or how things should be—we all have different goals and definitions of what success is.  Someone will interpret what we do as a mistake no matter what so we might as well learn to do what feels right to us.  Let the ego die—let the fragileness of interpretation go.  Develop the resilience and the fortitude to stand firmly in who we are.  That is where true strength lies.  When we know who we are, we welcome all facets of ourselves without shame, fear, or regret.  We don’t care what others think because we know who we are and what we need.  We simply ARE.  At that stage we no longer need ego.  We just need to be—and it doesn’t have to look how others say it should.  Welcome it all, dive all in, be all that we are.