Hemingway once said there is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
This task is simple but not easy. And it all goes back to our ability to not let the past control us anymore.
Imagine how many limits we put on ourselves when we were young and didn’t know any better. Think about all of those wonderful adventures we passed up because we couldn’t let go of our attachments. Consider all the things that were absolutely necessary for us yesterday, but may not even be relevant today. And ponder the psychic weight of all of the inheritances we still carry from our childhood.
What a heaping shit ton of emotional baggage.
And yet, we refuse to let it go. Because we’re afraid.
Afraid of outgrowing our shoes because we assume there’s no money for new ones. Afraid of dying to our former selves and facing the person we are in the process of becoming.
After all, who among us would surrender the familiar misery of the past for the frightening uncertainty of the future?
However, if we have any intention of being nobly superior to our former selves, we have an obligation to call bullshit on our own egos. To take those old parts of ourselves, look them over, honestly ask if they still work for us, and then decide whether to keep them or let them go.
It’s scary, but it’s the only path to freedom.
We must let go of our socially fabricated identity and reveal the real human being beneath.
LET ME ASK YA THIS...
Are you still clinging to that funny little self that gives you some kind of certainty?
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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
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