To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best to, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
E.E. Cummings (1894-1962)
A Miscellany, 1958
This quote is so true, I struggle, daily, against the urge to put everyone else's wishes above my own, to please the masses and lose myself. But if I am not happy then nobody around me will be happy; placated maybe, yet still unsatisfied in some way or another. A puppeteer does not move the puppet into one position then freeze it there. One manipulation, begets the next, and so on, and so on, in an almost endless dance. A fools jig is not a dance I enjoy.
I do not seek to be a puppeteer, but I rejected the puppets role long ago. Each of us should hold our own strings, they are a birthright, after all. Free-will is the gift everyone is born owning, it is all we need to be satisfied with our lot in life, no matter what that is. Choice is the great equalizer.
I think people, who try to change someone else, are really dissatisfied with themselves and just too lazy, or frightened of failure to do the work to alter what makes them unhappy. They delegate blame and labor onto others, yet still end up empty handed. If you have a flat tire, calling up a neighbor and demanding they change one of theirs will not solve a thing.
Life is much harder than it needs to be sometimes, but allowing people to jerk your strings only makes the journey more difficult. When you deny their manipulations they often give up, or grow bored and take their foolishness to a more willing victim. Be nobody-but-yourself and let the puppeteers dance alone.
THINK ABOUT IT
LET IT GROW
THEN DECIDE
