Change Yourself.

We often don't change because we don't want to. We think we want to, we think "Why can't I be like that?" or "I wish I was like that" or "I wish I could be like that". We think in these ways of wishing and hoping that things will change in us, that we will be a different person, not realizing that we are the only ones who can make that change. We can alter the outside, how people see us, make them think that's the way we are, but it won't be.

Is it that the prospect of change is scary? We will be leaving the familiar, we will be entering into uncharted land and will have an opportunity to fail. This is scary. But I don't think that's the reason. I think we don't want to put in the effort. Changing yourself takes time, patience, and very, very hard work. It takes complete presence in every moment, awareness in every decision, every action. Daily, momentary self-reminders, choices, that this is the person I am. Making decisions based on this person. Acting on those decisions. Being those actions. Identifying with that being.

Instead of all this hard work, all of this effort to be the person we want to be, instead we remove our own beliefs completely and  base our actions on a character, an idol, a shell. We begin to act how we want to appear. But that's not you, that's not a person, it's not life. That is an empty gesture to paint a picture. It is Van Gogh painting his bandaged ear without having actually cut it off. "This is how I would look if I cut of my ear and sent it to my girlfriend in a gesture of love and desperation."  It isn't as meaningful, jolting. It isn't real. Instead we work hard to look like something we are not. How can we be? We don't think that way, we don't feel that way, we don't believe that way. We only act that way- empty movements of constantly covering up the truth that we are too lazy, too self involved to put effort into life. Just adopting and adapting in mindless ways, thinking only of how it will look to others.  And when we get found out, what happens then?

Skip all of that. If you are going to put effort into something, put it into yourself, the real you. Become that person, the person you want to be, not just a shell. If you want to wake up early, set the alarm and when it goes off think "I am the kind of person that gets up at the first alarm." If you want to be healthy, work out. Constantly remind yourself, "I am a person who eats healthy." If that doesn't work, think "I am a person who doesn't eat bad food." If you want to be an honest person, always be aware of this and think to yourself "I am an honest person. I am a person who does not lie." If you start making these rules for yourself, individual guidelines of how a specific person should live, you will start to evolve into the person you want to become. It won't matter how people see you because you have already shaped yourself into that person, the one who doesn't swear, who picks up litter off the street, who meditates and does yoga every day, who tries her best to get up at the first alarm but forgives herself when she's just too tired. BE that person.

 Shells can be beautiful, magnificent even. But they are shells. They are not alive without something in them, without substance. Sure, you can make things, hang them on the wall, have them look pretty, but what else are they good for?

We are nothing but our actions. Fill them with meaning.