Forgiving yourself for being what you are

Are you about to embark on one of those soul searching quests? 

Perhaps setting off down a long spiritual path to find yourself? 

If so, here is my benediction for you. 

May you find what you’re looking for, but may you still love yourself if you don’t. 

Because despite your noblest intentions, there are no guarantees of enlightenment. Just like there are no inoculations from hell. That’s where the love part comes is. 

If you decide to take three months off from work traveling around the country, taking pictures of coffee stains, looking for a sign from the universe, it doesn’t mean you’ve earned the right to come out on the other side a reborn soul. 

Transformation cannot be forced. It takes a long time. Thousands of hours of evolving and surrendering and accruing experience and education. And along the way, if you’re not willing to forgive reality for being what it is, and if you’re not willing to forgive yourself for being what you are, then you will come out the other side caked with resentment. 

Personally, my transition from being an entrepreneur to becoming an employee took four years just find out who was full of shit. Most notably, myself. Then another few years to actually get good at it.

Look, all people do is change anyway. It’s not like this hallowed self we’re looking for is going to stay the same. 

Harvard’s history department did some research on this. Puett explains it as follows:

There is no true self, and no self you can discover in the abstract by looking within. Such a self would be little more than a snapshot of you at that particular moment in time. We are messy and multifaceted selves who are going through life bumping up against other messy, multifaceted selves. Who we are at any given moment develops through our constantly shifting interactions with other people. 

Isn’t it liberating to realize that the self and the world in which it exists is chaotic and imperfect? 

This insight is helpful to remember before selling all our belongings and hitting the road. 

Maybe there’s nothing to find. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How long should you look for something when you don’t know what you’re looking for?