Caring

   I haven’t written a blog in a while, and honestly, I haven’t been as involved with social media or people in general. Actually, I’ve only left my house a handful of times over the last two weeks. I’ve been going through a lot of things. I stopped and looked at my life about a month ago, and what I saw wasn’t good. I have so much doubt in who I am and what I do. I’ve realized something, though. I’m going to share it with you today.

   All of my problems don’t really revolve around my failures. They’re actually about one simple fact. I made a huge mistake about a year ago. I started caring. I know what you’re thinking. Why is it so bad to care? Here’s why. I’ve started caring about how people think I look, what they think of my writing, if I’m saying the right things, if I’m where I’m supposed to be at this point in my life, and if I’m the perfectly good person I’m supposed to be. Here’s the problem. I’m not perfect in any of those areas, and I keep trying to be. Every time someone criticizes me or makes fun of me, I take it as a challenge to be better. It makes everything feel like work. I have to wear the right clothes, eat the right foods, work out an appropriate amount of time, write what people tell me they want to hear instead of what’s inside me, constantly beat myself up about the bad things I do and say, and maybe worst of all, compare myself to everyone else my age and ask am I where they are? It’s a horrible feeling because no matter what you do, you never live up to who you’re supposed to be. It can drive you mad. It can make you avoid writing, going out, looking in a mirror, or even praying. It makes you constantly feel less than everyone else because people always complain, no matter what you do.

   Now, all of this might seem like one big complaint, but it’s really not. It’s just an acknowledgement that a long time ago I didn’t care what anyone thought. I liked people, and I would have preferred that they liked me and my writing, but I was just me for better or worse. I liked me. Fat or skinny, moral or devilish, talented or a delusional dreamer - it was all just me, and I was fine with that because I didn’t care. I didn’t care what other people wrote, where they were in their lives, or what they thought of me because I was living in my world, and it was such a happier place. So here’s me finally saying it. I don’t care. I’m going to be me. I’m going to write, be an emotional wreck who probably doesn’t get married until he’s forty, pair eating too much with a crazy amount of exercise, go out in very comfortable and stretchy clothing, and have a spiritual relationship that can only be described as bipolar. Sometimes I feel like that’s what I am in every area. At times I’m on top of the world, and at others, I feel like I’m buried beneath it. It’s time to smile again and maybe even cry when it’s necessary. It’s time for it to be okay for me not to be perfect or what anyone wants me to be. I wish the same for you. May none of us care to change who we are until one day we find people who we don’t have to care around because they love us exactly as we are.