We’re all in need of the same thing:
Acceptance.
In love, at work, with family, with friends, in the presence of God. We’re hoping our jagged little pieces will make sense to someone else, that they’ll fit into something important and prove our life’s work was worth it.
We know how imperfect we are. We’re the experts of our own minds, which means sometimes we feel like prisoners. No matter how big our cells, we’ve gotten to know every last corner of the room.
We have more time than anything else, time to examine, time to critique. It’s what we do with time. The goal is to make ourselves better but often we get stuck in the first part, wedged between walls, smushed between two panes of glass under our own microscope.
The objective is noble, but the quest, by its nature, is a struggle. And it can wear you down.
When you find yourself stuck between the glass or pacing the perimeter of your cell, I wish for you 3 things.
One, that you remember to love what you see, even if you’ve seen it before, even if it bores you. Especially, if it bores you.
Two, that you believe there is something new for you. Out there. In here.
And three, that you recognize the struggle in someone else’s eyes, run your hands over their sharp edges, and point them toward something lovely or something new.
For, we are not just prisoners but wardens and governors too. We are the hands on the bars. We are the eyes at the lens, peering into a tunnel of light and causing our own headache, as our hands blindly fidget for the right setting.
Pull away, look up. You’re on both sides of the bars. You’re above the glass and there’s something lovely and new waiting for you.