Seems like most people don’t like to be alone. People tend to need other people, most times. We need someone to talk to, someone to stand beside. Personally, I like having people around to cook for them. Feeding people brings me joy.
It’s dawned on me that if we stay in our own heads, life’s difficulties become even more difficult, maybe even unbearable. If there’s no outlet for our thoughts, emotions, perceptions and beliefs, they bounce around inside us, driving us crazy. When we worry about our problems alone, it’s harder to envision the solutions.
Sometimes, our responsibilities pile up and they feel like they’ve become too much to handle. We doubt ourselves, thinking we can’t continue on our own. We feel as though we need another person beside us to help. They might endure some of the pain for us, help us strategize, or carry us when we’re too tired and weak.
Over the years, I’ve faced adversity, been down on my luck, needed a hand, felt hopeless, wanted to give up, and had no motivation or inspiration to pick myself up and keep going. I guess I didn’t realize it, but my own thoughts held me back from doing what was necessary. Doing what could have helped me achieve greatness. In order to get over the brick wall I built in my brain, I pretended to be someone else. I saw the strength of another person and adopted it, allowed it to motivate me and inspire me. Seeing the same situation in a different frame of mind can give a new perspective and can the create confidence, enthusiasm and discipline to rise above the problem, be more creative, think more positively, and ultimately work my way out of the hole I was in.
Some might call it juvenile to rely on an invisible, imaginary hero, but they’ve been helpful every since I was a little kid. Every time I watched TV or saw a movie, I was searching for a hero. I wanted a fresh inspiration to keep on being brave enough to fight the daily battles happening in my world. As I stop to recall all of my previous heroes, I notice the strength of each of them.
Different folks have different heroes. Some choose fictional characters, some choose dead relatives. Some choose an imaginary, fictional character from a book. Characters that have achieved legendary, supernatural status.
That’s the difference between me and the religious: Even though I know the persona is fake, the feeling they give can be as real as I want it to be. It’s the feeling that propels me through.
I choose to allow made-up stories of selflessness, genius and might to spark new efforts into the moments of my day.
I need to absorb the strong will of others and translate it into my own.
