You are what you believe.
Posted on | August 30, 2008 |
Time for truth. It’s undoubtedly debatable in an endless manner that “truth” is relative. I aim to agree with that, and if you follow, you’ll agree that it’s ridiculous for me to start out by stating it’s time or truth. Nonetheless, I do.
Ponder this simple statement, “You are what you believe.”
Add to this, “… not what others believe of you.” Let it sink in for a moment. Swill it around your beliefs and see if any start to dissolve at the edges.
How many of your beliefs are a result of simply adopting other someone’s else’s idea and making it your own? I bet it is impossible to count how many small and large beliefs you have labeled, “Mine” that walked right in the front door without even pausing to ask if they could come in. Why should they? You invited them to come sit for a spell inside of your own structure of beliefs.
So, is this truth? I believe so. And I sit here laughing now because you may have the first opportunity in your entire life to check MY belief against yours before accepting it. It’s like the elephant in the living room, folks. How could you possibly know it was there when you unknowingly agreed to accept that it’s always been there, and always will be.
You can ask that elephant to leave, by the way. It is YOUR living room, after all.
And so I come to the crux of why this blog was born. I want to continue to grow and challenge my own beliefs. Perhaps this process will be illuminating and useful to someone else. Perhaps it holds no interest to you – if so, no harm done, be on your merry way. If you’d like to jump in the rabbit-hole, read on…
Let’s exit the realm of generalities and concept and try on something solid. I make no secret that the above idea was not my own, or that it was a long time coming for me to understand it’s impact on my own happiness.
I titled this blog, “My Digital Life” not because I separate the digital one from the analog one… in fact, it’s quite the opposite. I believe that it’s far more healthy to accept all of your beliefs and be ONE person as opposed to many, depending on the situation.
Let’s use Facebook as an example. At first it started out as a social networking site where you had two choices to show people, a “Limited profile” that had very little factual data about you and a “Full Profile” that had every little bit you chose to reveal about yourself.
With the recent update, I now see that you can categorize people by your relationship with them. In particular, you can now label a contact as “Business”, so that you can categorically browse your friends. This is a useful method for me, as I invite all who use Facebook and know me to be my friend. I can now check out what my friends in industry are doing. Good stuff, when I am working. I do see one danger in this, though - keeping a different face for each category you have. From my vantage, this is the norm now. When at work, it is subliminally implied that you have to “keep face” because perception is everything. I agree with the latter, but not the former.
I believe that everyone is human, with the ability to fail and succeed. I do not judge people who make mistakes, because I’ve experienced extreme growth from what appeared to be failures at the time. If you don’t fuck up, you’re not trying hard enough, I say. So, this belief that you must never let on that you’re capable of mistakes, that you are perfect and the blame for failure can never lie with you is not something in which I believe.
Instead, I believe that trust is the foundation of all good relationships. In addition, if you make it clear that you were doing your best and you’ll do it better next time, you’re more likely to have a stronger relationship down the road. Plus, it may inspire the others to act in a similar manner. I see no disadvantages. If everyone simply wants to get the work done and enjoy the journey in addition to the destination, this belief eliminates all the time wasted by posing, pleasing and ass-covering. The result is more efficient use of time PLUS an enjoyable work day. Making sense?
Back to Facebook. I choose to reveal all of my actives and interests because I like doing them. If someone else is no longer interested in being my friend because of what I do or like, I’d rather not spend any time on them, either. The result is that now I spend no time trying to gauge what people WANT ME TO BE and focus more on WHAT I WANT TO BE. I’m enjoying the journey and have enough time to appreciate all those things I have in my life. I want more, and those are my goals, but I am not living for that day in the future, I am spending my time enjoying today.
I bet the majority of my friends on Facebook have no idea of my above beliefs. Rewind Matt Hill 3 years and I would never have seen the elephant in the living room. By my own hand I was stuck in a rut of goal-lessness. I had stopped dreaming and was focused (unknowingly) on why others made me unhappy, instead of how I could make myself happy. You see how asking a different question can open new doors immediately? Old Matt: “Why don’t these people make me happy” versus New Matt: “What am I doing to make myself happy?” Who holds the power in each of those questions? The new Matt knows I hold the singular power for my own happiness. The old Matt was waiting, waiting for other people to deliver his happiness with fries and coke. Super-size that shit! I want big-big happy!
Now to the present again, I am happy to share what I am doing with my life with all that I know. I am an open book. I will answer any question with complete truth. And I am happy to be whomever I want to be at the moment, and willing to change when I choose.
On Facebook, I see a few social trends:
1: It’s a contest of popularity
2: It’s friends who have hunkered down to starting a life/family and are coming up for air, discovering that they have pushed aside many old friends in exchange for a deeper, more singular relationship with one person
3: It’s idea-hunting for cool things to do
4: It’s an addiciton for attention
#1 & #4 kind of go hand-in-hand. I admit I do like attention - who doesn’t? I believe we are social creatures for a reason - other people enrichen our lives. But hinging your hopes of happiness for the day/hour on feedback from someone else is a sign of personal unhappiness, IMO.
#2 is something I experienced myself, and I wouldn’t give up a moment of the previous chapter in my life. My only caution/thinking point to anyone in that situation is that you consider being grateful for what you have before casting about for replacements. A variety of friends is a good balance in life. If the rug ever gets pulled out from under you, it’s a larger foundation to fall down on.
So, in a kind of wrapup for a lot of ideas/beliefs let me suggest the following things:
Believe that you are who you want to be. If not, that you can be that person.
Believe that anyone not interested in who you enjoy being isn’t worth your time. There are billions of people in this world.
Believe that being grateful for what you have now allows you to sort out the other “wants” in a clearer manner.
Good luck! Lively discussion in the comments is welcome.
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