You're Not the Same Guy I Used to Know!
(Why Change is Good)
Thank God for that. Change is good. Change is a constant in this world, and therefore in you. You are made of energies; energy is always in motion. E-motions are in constant change, and emotions make up your personality, if they are given enough power and attention.
How would your closest friends or family describe you? Are they using emotions in place of descriptive words, like “He’s a funny guy, an angry guy, sad etc.”? Those are emotional states, but if you stay in that state long enough, it becomes a habit, and given enough time and energy, habits become your personality. Do you like how you would be described?
As men we are subject to many different trains of thought regarding emotions, each based on learned behaviors from parents, teachers, and friends, from a very young age. Boys don’t cry. Stuff your emotions and feelings down low. Suppress them. Being aggressive is toxic masculinity. Expressing yourself is toxic masculinity.
I’m here to tell you to feel your feelings, and then use them to better yourself. Something made you angry? Why? What a stranger said to you has you feeling insecure? Why? Someone dislikes you and that upsets you? Why?
Your growth will be found in the discomfort. The discomfort of sitting with yourself, without numbing substances, and finding out the truth about why you react the way you react, how you act, and once you’ve found that change… You can now move into metamorphosis, learn from what that emotion is teaching you, and grow as a man.
“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
You are meant to flow through emotions, not become them. Allow them to come up, give them a little time and attention, and let them flow just as they came in. Don’t give them anymore power than that.
Change and evolution is in our DNA. As a collection of atoms and energy, we are literally always in motion. If you aren’t changing, you aren’t evolving. Stagnation is equal to death in that if you aren’t changing, and find yourself in the same space mentally, physically and spiritually for a long period of time…you are living a slow death my friend.
“Many young men die at 25 but are not buried until they are 75.”
Be curious. Learn new things. Live passionately and with purpose. Love. Say no to comfort. Break routine.