The Painter of Your Own Masterpiece

There’s an interesting concept I thought of the other day. We go through life, and from the day we are born, we have an assumed label. The thing is, I don’t think we understand what that means for us.

Surviving in the World Tip #7 – The Necessity of Self-Definition

We go through life with our names, and for some, that’s all there is. For nearly two decades, we are constructing this name under adult supervision, crafting the brand behind the scenes. We have no clue what the hell we are building, and we hardly even know the product.

Then something happens. We become adults, and this name and what we have done with it steers the rest of our lives.

We’ve assembled this collection of traits and characteristics that we never had full control over in the first place. We claim that we are angry, shy, happy, successful, or unlucky people. We obtain all of these characteristics and never even had our own say in the matter.

The Artist of Our Own Picture

For our years of youth, we are not the artist, but rather the canvas on which everyone paints. Our parents line the background as our teachers guide us on how to fill inside the lines. Our friends shape the foreground, as our foes fill in the white spaces.

As unfortunate as it is, some of us never realize that being an adult means we are the artist of our life’s picture. Yes, there is a whole painting from our younger past, but that doesn’t mean anything if we don’t want it too.

There are countless activities in the world, but we subjugate ourselves to the hobbies of our childhoods.

There are countless people in the world, but we continue to mix with those we’ve been around from our school years.

As individuals, there is so much we don’t know about the world and environment we live in, and still, some of us are never willing to open the gates of our comfort zone.

We need not let our name define us once we reach adulthood, but instead, we should set it. There is so much in this world that we don’t know, and staying stagnate in the picture that others have painted for us is the demise of our happiness.

We take labels, physical and mental, and we pin them on ourselves with pride. However, we fail to realize that by dangling trophies of strength, we ultimately weaken ourselves. The definition of words are subjective, and no matter how hard you try to fulfill the label, there will always be a comparative that can discredit the fact. You may be the strongest man in the world, but you’re still not stronger than a gorilla.

The Freedom of Nothing

We are so much more than a name and a set of labels. We are something even before our parents give us our name at birth. There is a true self that transcends any single collection of sounds we can use to describe.

There is a pertinent understanding we must have to find true freedom and serenity in our lives. We must recognize that we are nothing. Please do not take this in the sense of diminishing one’s sense of self, but rather the opposite. Therefore, instead of nothing, let it be that we are everything as well. In the sense of the world, we are both nothing and everything.

We are everything we have ever been, what we are, what we will ever be, and so much more. Understand that the sands of time confine us, and that is the only reason we aren’t everything. We are gods who simply die too young.

If we lived forever, we could understand every law that commands the state of being. We could build worlds; we could obtain the knowledge of all existence, we could find a way to overcome the obstacles of our limitation through technology and progression.

The great inventors of history have been able to bequeath the creations of their mind into a materialized truth in the world. Do you dare challenge that we couldn’t create worlds and universes if given ample time? Lost, we are in a world that looks for what it can find next, and that search perimeter is small in comparison to the universe, but it has been ever expanding.

Define Yourself Beyond Words

There is a being inside of you that can’t be touched by the definitions of language. In an attempt to define God, that same explanation can be used. So let it be that if you can obtain the same definition, you are at least similar.

When you enter adulthood, don’t continue to be the canvas in which others can paint, because that is the only way you lose the game of life. It takes a surmountable proportion of self-love and care to get to this point, but it’s worth being the painter of your own portrait.

With this understanding of a real sense of self, I argue against the credibility of our society, a system built on the label. You are more than adjectives and a name. So, how do you define yourself without them?