“You’ve spent a year staring into a mirror.
Another one trying to figure out what you saw.
Paid so much attention to what you’re not.
You have no idea who you are.”
— Heaven Knows (The first four lines of a song) by First Aid Kit
The four sentences I started this blog post with, are lyrics from the song, Heaven Knows by First Aid Kit, two sisters from Sweden, Klara and Johanna Soderberg. (If you google First Aid Kit on Amazon, to buy the CD Stay Gold, that this song is on, add the search word, music, or you will just get images of actual first aid kits with bandaids.)
Do you pay attention to what you’re not? Do you know who you are?
How do you know who you are? Did you take a personality test? Are you an IMJTXYZ, a 4 wing 8, 3 wing 2?
Are you letting a personality test decide who you are? If you base your life on personality tests, you limit your future.
The book, Personality Isn’t Permanent, published on June 16, 2020, by Dr. Benjamin Hardy, challenges us to make a choice about who we are. He suggests that our future should be guiding our daily behavior; most people’s future is based on their past.
Please don’t use your past as an excuse to not create now. Just because you think you can’t do something now, doesn’t mean you can’t learn and change your future.
“People use the past as the excuse to remain stuck in habits and attitudes that keep them from growing.”
―
I painted the self-portrait with blue tears after my husband asked me for a divorce. I felt like I had no future.
Make a choice about who you are
Reading Benjamin Hardy’s book has helped me see that I have a future. A future that I chose, not a future dictated by a personality test.
Not a future dictated by what other people say about me, or about how I saw myself in the past.
Hardy writes, “Goals shape identity, identity shapes behavior, and our behavior, (over time) becomes our personality.
If you are taking personality tests to figure out who you are, you are limiting who you can become.
We don’t find ourselves, we create ourselves.
“Life isn’t about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.”
— George Bernard Shaw)
What do you want to create with your life?
I don’t have to hide behind a mask pretending to be happy. We don’t have to paint a clown face.
I don’t know how your year has been. I don’t know what is going on in your life.
But you can be who you want to be. You can look in the mirror and decide who you are.
Who are you?
Did your teacher tell you that you should give up on trying to be an artist? Did they tell you to mouth the words to the songs at your Christmas recital? Did they hold up your math paper in front of the class and tell everyone how bad you were at math?
If you want to sing. Sing.
If you want to draw. Draw.
If you want to write. Write.
If you want to be a speaker. Speak.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
— Albert Einstein
Risk sounding off-key as you learn to sing.
Risk drawing when what you draw doesn’t look like what you imagine.
Risk writing the first draft of a story that you change later. You can’t edit a story you have never written.
Risk making a mistake and stumbling over words when you speak on stage for the first time.
You don’t have to paint like Bob Ross, to be an artist.
This is me as Bob Ross. (Except Bob Ross smiles. I have to learn how to draw teeth.)
We get better at what we do by doing it. Which means I will start drawing teeth.
Live your future self, the one you image, by what you do today. We learn by doing. We get better by practice. Smile for me, and I will practice drawing your teeth.
Pay attention to what you are
You are fearfully and wonderfully made. God made you and he loves you very much. He knows how many hairs are on your head. If you have curly hair, it is because your hair follicles are oval-shaped.
If you pay attention to what you’re not, you can’t see who you are.
I am Pamela. I will always be Pamela. I have a future. And you have a future. You are you. And you are enough.
Please let me know who you see in the mirror. Do you have any idea who you are?
Do you feel creative? Do you see yourself learning something new?
xo
Pamela
p.s. Stay Gold is the only CD I have listened to for the past few months. The songs on this CD have helped me see a future, and to find a silver lining in my life.
I love the band First Aid Kit.
