Let me tell you something about me--I am a nerd. I say that without any hint of self-deprecating charm. Truly, I straddle the line between diva and bookworm (proudly). I even read the backs of cereal boxes or fix-it manuals if there is nothing else around to read. I guess it is no surprise that I ended up being.... (drum roll please) an English educator. Seriously though, I can get lost for hours in a good (or even not so good) book.
One of the first authors I fell in love with was James Baldwin. I was a precocious reader and really had no business reading him when I was only 12 or 13. However, his critical notes and essays started a fire in me that continues to burn to this day. Why? Well, because he lived his life according to his ideas about who he should be. He refused to be defined by a society that oppressed him due to his race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status. He rewrote the rules about what is to be accepted and when he couldn't find satisfaction here, he quit this place. He left the United States and became one of the black expatriates who lived abroad. He was a man ahead of his time and beyond this place. He had fears and insecurities like the best of us, but he moved beyond that. He struggled with self-doubt and identity, but he moved beyond that. He made it his life's mission to speak truth to power and live that truth and exercise that power (in whatever ways that he could).
I chose the introductory quote because I believe that sometimes we get caught up in what has happened to us. We live in a place of "used to be" and "when I was." Absolutely, we are products of the things that have happened to us. However, we are more than those things. Whether we are privileged or not, we each have experiences that are of value to the future us. You may have done some things in the past that you are not proud of and may have moved towards redemption or enlightenment. However, self-doubt creeps in and you can't see yourself for the better you that you've become. How sad is it that you let those past experiences define who you are. In many ways, you become one dimensional, much like "Flat Stanley." I would suggest, like the ever wise Mr. Baldwin, that you are much more than that. If you find yourself living in the past or in a world of one note experiences, please know that you are much more than that. And if you find that you can't move beyond the you you feel you have to be...pick up a book, go to a museum, take up a hobby...do something differently, so that you can look at yourself through fresh eyes. Good luck!!!
Image courtesy of Google Images.
