We only get (or have to go through, depending on your point of view) one lifetime The things we collect, the footprints we create the icons that we think define us whether they should or not
, all that's lifestyle.
I should know. I've been decoding other's footprints, reading them like a psychic reads tea leaves for a very long time. Embedded in everything we've dragged with us from one shelter to another is an encryption that can tell us more about who we really are (and who we think we are or wanted to be) more accurately than a year of psychoanalysis. If we never change the stuff around us then we don't change either. If we never ask ourselves, it this thing still adding to the quality of my life? Then we shove it over to make room for the next thing that gets plopped down right next to it. If our homes start looking like Syble lives there, chances are our heads are just as full too. Our idea of change seems more about "adding to" versus "instead of." Guess that's why there're over 137 million square feet of self-storage in our country. We are wired for change but don't. We're built for many lifestyles but can't let go of any of them. We pile on instead of peel away.
In my years of teaching the art of reinvention, I've witnessed the same story over and over again. We avoid contentment altogether because it requires us to change. Then we suffer because we continually choose what we perceive as safety over happiness itself. We hoard what no longer even applies to our lives because someday we might need it again? Does that make sense?
We fear the unknown when we were, by design wired to explore the unknown. Go figure! Remember Rosevelt's phrase "we have nothing to fear but fear itself?" Probably not. After all, that was way back in 1932 which, by the way, he totally plagiarized from Sir Francis Bacon's "Nothing is terrible but fear itself," further back to the 1600 hundreds.
So it's not like we haven't heard this stuff before.
So, if it's been out there as far back as 1599 when Shakespear wrote "to thine own self, be true" or even earlier in 399 BC when Socrates was actually killed for his credo "know thyself," why are we finally grasping this concept only now? Because we can google it!
Because we now have a global forum to hear more human stories in real time, than every before. We now share a network to privately tell each other more of our stories in a single day than people of the past heard in an entire lifetime. The technology we do it with is so intuitive that we all finally know how to use it as a natural extension and part of our daily lives.
We forget that only 20 years ago, and all the centuries prior, the only stories we heard were passed down by people we'd only physically come in contact with or in headlines edited and carefully curated for us.
Nevertheless, through social media, we're listening to more fellow humans at one time and in real time, than ever before. These voices and images from every inch of the planet, are changing our perceptions of ourselves punching holes in what we thought we understood about each other. In fact we were so preoccupied doing it, that we wern't paying attention and forgot to vote! Well it's by sharing our stories that women finally can unite with courage and as a result we are at a sexual harassment tipping point which will also have us looking for a new president.
As a result of a global internet, the picture of who we are has been quietly expanding. We are no longer just sectors of people defined by geography or race genetics. We're beginning to understand for ourselves that we no longer are just the human race, but the same human species with a greater common denominator than we'd ever thought. We're finally getting that collectively, we ARE "humanity" itself.
