We’ll let me start like this. Are we as a society defined by the stereotypical image of what we have placed on us? The image of what we need to be not what we want to be. The image of being fit, great job, big house, nice car, and a happy family. These are all surface things though. Maybe it is the love, compassion and the way we handle life’s stresses. We as a society have placed us in this cookie cutter mold that not everyone can fit into. Those that can’t fit into that cookie cutter is considered an outcast, different, and must have an issue that has made them not PERFECT.... What is perfect? Why the cookie cutter? Can we all be original and except each other as who and what defines us. Cause to me there is no cookie cutter. We were all created equally but not the same.
As a society we all have talents such as cooking, business, arts, and singing just to name a couple. We all have passions that drive us as a human being. Something that makes us tic and want to drive to be more and better. Society has place a stigma that we can never settle for less. We need to be more than we can set unrealistic expectations for ourselves. These unrealistic expectations are what makes us as individuals feel that we failed. That failure is what we focus on instead of find or figuring away around or through it. Heck even maybe even lowering those expectations to steps instead of leaps.
As an outsider looking in at someone’s life we pass judgment based on what we see on the surface. You go in the store and see a mother shopping with kids and the kids are all over the place, she is opening boxes of food before she bought the item so she can bribe the kids. She is in a pair of sweat pants and a shirt and looks like she didn’t brush her hair brush her teeth and didn’t shower yet and it is 4 o’clock in the afternoon. You look in the cart and see nothing but fried foods, canned items, and desserts for what looks like could feed an army. Then you put it all together and say why she can’t control her kids, look at what she is feeding her kids, and no wonder why she looks so unhealthy. Does that fit into the society of the cookie cutter? Well at first glance and just using the perception of what we see then no. However if you were to ask her what do you think she would say. Would she say her kids are straight A kids and are superseding the school standards. Would she tell you she just got done at the gym because she is working to get back to what she looked like before she had kids? Would she tell you that she is a happily married woman that makes a 6 figure income and is doing what her life’s passion is? Do you think that she would say that she is beyond happy with her life and that she is defined by what she has accomplished with her kids, husband and life? Did she take her life’s trial and tribulations and learn from them. Did she let the stigma of the society cookie cutter image set her life and goals?
As for me I am always going and always changing and adapting to myself. My talents are learned and taught to me. Sometimes I go to fast for even myself and the people/society around me. Everything on the surface is done by experience and what makes me happy. Even my looks! There are days and weeks I don’t want to shave my face or iron my cloths. However I do cause if I don’t the image that I will give off is I don’t care about myself. My job requires a standard that I have to comply too. It is what has to be done because of the perception as a whole for the company the environment around me. So yes there are things I do to comply because I need to keep my job. I have to pay bills. However that is NOT what defines me.
What defines me is the passion I have for my kids, my thoughts, my ideas, and my free will to present and express myself the way I want. I will be the first to tell you on the surface I will try and fit into that cookie cutter but once that wall of perception is gone you will see the true me. My kids are my number one joy. I look at them and see them playing and having fun and just being kids. Knowing that they are a piece of me and my wife to which is the greatest mother in the world. Seeing my kids smile and just be kids is the greatest feeling in the world. That is something that no one can ever take from me. It is something that I can always remember and go and talk about as they get older. I also have many thoughts and ideas. I will always pursue all my thoughts and feeling in one fashion or another. If it is just writing my thoughts and ideas down on a napkin in a gas station and saving them for later or never to be used again. It is out of my head. If it is something I am passionate about I will see it through to the bitter end no matter what the outcome is. I am the biggest critic of myself. If my ideas or thoughts don’t pan out I do get mad and sometimes feel like a failure however I don’t let that stop me. I do make mistakes some bigger than others and some have life long lasting effects. I take that and figure a way to make it a positive. Something I can learn from and pass on to others.
No to the part that is not always welcomed or will ever fit into that cookie cutter is the way I express myself and present myself. At first glance you would never know I have tattoos. Well that is my form of expressing me on my own skin. Something that will always be there for my entire life and even into the afterlife. My tattoos have meaning to me. It wasn’t a drunken mistake or something I will ever forget. For example I have my wife’s name on me. Will I ever get that covered up or removed? Will I think it was a mistake? HELL NO... It is something that means the world to me. She has been in my life for 16 years given me my 3 beautiful kids and has put up with all my crap. She will be with me at all times even when I die. Her name is a symbol that I will only know what it means. Society will say why did you do that? What happens if you divorce? What happens if you get remarried? We’ll all I have to say is it is my body my expression and it means something to ME not you.
That leads me into expressing myself. For the most part I try and be PC and think before I talk... Well that doesn’t always work. Cause at the moment it feels right at the moment. Is it the right things to say? Is it something that I would regret saying? Will it hurt somebody? These are things I can’t take back but it is what I can learn from. Sometimes it is too much and is so in your face that it pushes people away. It can be so much information or a hard realization that it was true or so far of base that I am wrong. Well that is what I have to deal with but society can never take my expression away. I f as a society we suppress the expression of emotions we will all be like a volcano and explode and it could be the most devastating time ever. So why do we have to be so PC and sensitive to information. It is all because of the personal feeling and thoughts we have as human beings. It is what makes you tic, me tic, and us as a society tic. Cursing can be offensive to some as to where religion can be as well, and same with politics. This freedom of expression is what defines you. It doesn’t fit into the cookie cutter and NEVER will. That is the perfect definition of what defines us.
So in short what defines me is me.... I set my goals, my passion, and my free will to express myself how I want. We all have set backs and trails and tribulations. It is how we take and perceive them as an individual and a society. Can we learn from them can we teach the right thing to do or do we need to learn by the school of hard knocks! We can always bounce back and never settle for anything unless it is what defines you as a person. If it is what makes your heart filed with love, caring, and compassion. Even the worst criminals have this. Their actions aren’t what defines them but just a mistake of what they didn’t learn...
Today’s Quote:
"Our Greatest Glory is not in never falling but rising every time we fall"
"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."
