The Turning of the Mirror

There are many difficult things in life, depending on the person. For some people, the hardest thing to do is to ask questions, and for others, it can be to forgive. I personally think it is to spending time with ourselves is the hardest thing to do in life.

A significant contributing factor to developing this mindset is from society. Society has programmed us to seek the things it tells us we need and want to fit in versus what is withinside of us, which is a shame. It is like saying that there is something wrong with being an outsider, which it isn’t. For me I know I do not fit into societies role of who I should be, and yes sometimes it bothered me, but the more that I think about it, there is something powerful about being your own person that doesn’t have to wait for someone to tell you who you should be. You have the deciding vote. It is allowing you to be the person that you were created to be. The more that I think about it, it doesn’t always have to be society telling you who you are; it can be your friends, family, associates, or anyone that influences you to be something that you are not. There is nothing wrong about being an outsider or a person that refuses to fit in and wants to be their own person. I think that it takes a lot of bravery.

As I said before, I do not fit in, and trust me; I have tried everything to be like everyone else, to be “normal.” The thing that I learned is that I was never happy. I was miserable because I could not make my own decisions for myself. My case is a little bit different because I was abused into doing the things that other people wanted me to do, and it had more power over me than I knew at the time. At the time, I valued wanting to be accepted than the person I was created to be. What I learned from the experience is it is okay not to fit in and that I do not have to have everything right every single day of my life. I just need to set my sights on making improvements and start somewhere. I know I lost some time that I am not going to get back and somethings that I wanted to happen in my life that might not happen, but I do get to go from here making different decisions for myself. I don’t have to become so consumed with the things around me that I forget that I am a person. I can now take the time I knew I needed to know me and be the person that I have always dream of being and not just thinking about changing or saying maybe one day.

I like to look at all of this like a football game. There are two types of people at a game. There are the people that are actually playing the game and the people that are watching the game (spectators). The people on the field are living out their best life in the present moment. In real life, that looks like people doing the things that they enjoy and not waiting for someone to tell them who they are or going to be. It is simply being free in the person that you were created to be. The spectators are all the people watching the game. They are watching the game in great detail. Sometimes you can hear them calling out different things that should be changed in the plays on the field. In reality, these people are people that are consistently worrying and obsessing over someone else’s happiness instead of getting in the game of their life. The point that I am trying to make with this analogy is to be the MVP of the game of your life. Take the time to know who you are. I am not talking about knowing only what your dreams and goals are but

• Know the things that affect you.
• Know the things that you enjoy doing.
• Know what your ambitions in life are.
• Know the things that you value.
• Know the reasons why you respond to things the way that you do. Then decide what you are going to do with that knowledge.
• Know the things that you believe.

When we do not take this time, we are doing ourselves an injustice by consuming ourselves in someone else’s story instead of the starring role in our own story.

This reflection is one that I have been thinking about by turning the mirror on myself and looking at why I am the way that I am right now. But if something in this post resonates with you, then I challenge you to do something that I am working on currently, which is challenging myself to discover who I am. I have always been a daughter, a friend, a student, a cousin, a niece, etc., but if I was frank with myself, I have never been Maggie. I have been stuck in who everyone thinks that I should be instead of who I am. The way that I am working on changing that is just spending an hour with myself a week minimum with no devices and doing something that I enjoy. If you’re up to it, you’re welcome to join me in the challenge, if you don’t know what that is that you enjoy, then here is your chance to find out. Take some time and write down somethings you would like to try. Sometimes the answers we need were inside of us the whole time.