Who are you underneath all of the exterior that you project? And why does that person only exist inside the walls of your home? When you return home, do you disconnect from the rest of the world outside of those walls just to regress to a comfort level, or do you elect to keep fanning the flame by using your personal time to chase becoming who you want to be? Having a separate life at home away from the one you life dad-to-day is good—it’s part of why we all want our own space. But the person you are at home is probably drastically different from the one that the public gets to see. Why? Are you too scared to let everyone know who you really are? If so, why? Is that person a secret for only you to know because if the public knew who you were really, you’d be shunned? Or perhaps you’re ashamed of who you are behind closed doors? When the person you become outside of the home is a great departure from who you are when you’re at your most comfortable, you’re creating problems.
We’re all too hung up on perceptions; we’re too concerned with our perception of others’ opinions of who we are. Having to maintain an image can be exhausting to the point that the sense of relief that we feel when we get home is synonymous with the feeling we get when the cardio workout is over. (Big deep breaths of recovery.) Why be so out of breath all day? Why fight so hard to keep up with perceptions? We must strive to live authentically; and do it daily, implementing the improvements we’ve made upon ourselves with the lessons we take away from our daily devotion to our daily/nightly studies.
“The greatest empire is to be emperor of oneself.”
“Everyone wants to change the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves.”
The world needs strong men. To that extent, it can also be said that your country needs strong men, and your state, your city, your block, and your home. But home is where it starts. In our time at home we must look to ourselves and really assess who we are now with who we want to be. Just as we plan to accomplish any project/goal, we must assess ourselves to determine our course to get to where we want to be. But life is not exclusively about finding a way or making your own path; it’s not even exclusively about making a better tomorrow for the children of today—life is all of those things. And too many of you are not accepting that call. If you’re not accepting the duty to be a better man, how are you ever going to get to where you want to be? The time is now to become a better man and a better citizen. That’s a subjective statement intended to be one. But what’s not subjective is that none of us can be happy with our current status because no one is out the carving statues in our likeness out of slabs of marble.
We must strive toward becoming our ideal version of ourselves in a daily devotion to the task. We can take the square peg and put it through the round hole if we swing the hammer hard enough. First, you must be willing to swing the hammer with conviction, with intent, with the objective in mind that we’re not going to accept average.
If you’re interested in growing yourself and becoming better, reach out to me to join the group.
