In 2016, there were quite a few songs that helped me pick myself up. They were songs where the artist was speaking to themselves. A second voice of sorts, one’s self listening to one’s self give the advice and motivation needed to get things going. For me, one of those songs was titled, “Love”, by Kid Cudi. On mornings right around this time last year, I would leave the house in the mornings for work and play that song, followed by Kid Cudi’s other song “Speeding Bullet to Heaven (Acoustic)”.
These songs spoke volumes to me. The speaker was telling the listener:
“Don’t be so down, come on, young homie.
You’ll be OK, you’ll find your way out. All of the stories, the hero gets lonely. Now is the time to show what you’re made of.”
And on one particular day, I remember singing along to the song and I started crying. Crying like that one crying fan at a 1980s Michael Jackson concert that the camera catches. They’re enjoying the song, believing the words, but are lost in emotion. I didn’t bother to wipe the tears because at that point I knew I wasn’t crying for nothing. “Love” was the song that, just five months earlier, I had cut my locs to. “Love” was the song that helped me make sense of myself when I started tearing away the wall paper of my life. Hell, “Love” is just a good song.
We hear it often, but there’s really only one person who guides our actions and our thoughts. It’s ourselves. And in this crazy world we live in, we’re constantly being told that when we point a finger three fingers point back. In every situation in life, rather than taking situations by the horn, we think about those three fingers. When things don’t quite work out well, we think about those three fingers. When people leave us, mistreat us, and deceive us, we think about those three fingers. We overthink those three fingers in all of our life’s negative scenarios and forget that those three fingers also point to a powerful thinker. Strong-minded, strong-willed young people who still have the time, still have the energy and tenacity to do great things. 25 is young. 27 is young. 35 is young. 44 is young. I hear a lot of people talking about age, which is really just a measure of how many times the world spun while you lived on it.
Time can be manipulated. Time relies on gravity. Gravity relies on the density of the Earth, which you can’t change, but what you can change is the tone of the voice in your head that has been verbally abusing you for the last couple hundred days. That’s what I did.
On the day I cut my locs, eyes puffy from crying, hands shaking from anxiety and sadness I just looked myself in the mirror and thought, “Look how easily I can change myself”. People sometimes talk about staying the same, and will often tell good people, “Don’t ever change”. No. Change.
Change now. Fall in love with you good and great you know you have in yourself and grow it. Fall in love with the inner voice you have, so that you can fall in love to the listener. Accept who you are and what you’ve done, but also accept the responsibility to change the world around you by falling in love with yourself. In life, there’s pebbles and puddles. We have to focus on the puddles we can cause ripples in with our pebbles, and the very first one is being a sound and firm believer of yourself.
So many of my peers I talked to this year exchange stories with me about their falls, their low points, the days they didn’t think they’d get out of bed. I tell them mine. About my over-drinking, about my recklessness, and about how much rage I had in my heart. The truth is we’re all a singular cataclysmic event away from falling out of love with ourselves.
That’s OK, because there are three fingers pointing back at us. And for every cataclysmic scenario of self-destruction, there are three absolute moments of joy that will make us fall in love with ourselves with unconditional and unshakeable conviction. Know that and accept it.
So this year, be ready for both of those, but choose now to begin changing that inner voice. Do it today. Do it this week. You don’t have to cut your hair, or change your physical appearance (because truth be told, it won’t work - it didn’t work for me), but you’re going to have to change who you are to yourself and what role you have in your life. Finances, relationships, and worldly measures aside there is no wealth in this world better than self love. All of the most successful people in this world, many of whom we look up to, became successful only after they became in sync with themselves. In 2017, I hope you not only embark in that journey, but tell your story. I hope you fall in love. I hope you fall in love with yourself.
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