My Epistle to Self
This will be my undoing. Why do I seem not to get it right? He knows how many times I’ve tried. It seems that whenever it seems I’ve made solid progress I tend to trip over. I’ll never get tired because I’m willing and ready to take this transformative odyssey. It is unequivocal that indeed being an adult doesn’t necessarily mean maturity.
This is a letter to the self. A letter that describes a relentless endeavor and ambition to conquer this huge boulder with all the efforts I have. I’m writing this after looking back and perceiving all the factors that have contributed to the tripping over, Almost every time, I have taken an affirmative action, from now henceforth, to recalibrate and take a different path. A path that will guarantee growth towards becoming the best version of myself, the version that I dream of.
We are human beings and many times we fall into temptations; our minds and souls are tempted by something or someone. At times these temptations can be very overwhelming to the point that we fall into the trap, we becoming captives. Not even the sound self-control virtue, that we boast of, can come to our rescue.
The mind is a powerful organ, it is one of the most intelligent organs human beings possess. It is through it that great scientists came up with inventions, that afterwards revolutionized the science agora. Nevertheless, this same brain is very susceptible, to things that tend to guarantee pleasure as the reward. These things make our minds numb and unable to make rational decisions.
Rationality is the one trait that distinguishes human beings from any other creature on this planet. But, in one way or another, we fail to employ this rational ability and instead come up with irrational decisions that might have detrimental effects not only on our intrinsic value but also on others.
This will be my undoing. It is during this day, at this point that I’ve made some personal resolutions to embark on a very different path in my life. I can no longer keep on repeating the same thing over and over again. It shouldn’t be a cycle. Instead, it should be something transitional and transformative, like unlearning bad habits and learning new habits.
Manners maketh a man, they say. It is a phrase that carries gargantuan meaning, only if you zoom out and view it from all angles. I cannot finish explaining its real meaning unless I want to write a book, but I do understand the meaning it’s trying to bring home. A man without manners is not a man. Manners are intrinsic to a man and it is an imperative aspect that drives who a man becomes, either responsible or irresponsible.
Nothing is welcoming like making a personal resolution to transform your personality. Change is inevitable and it's one aspect that guarantees growth. As a man, you need to roll up your sleeves and take up the challenge of transforming your identity. Achieving this means refraining from all habits that appear contrary to your tenets. This is attained by eliminating all the factors that catalyze the continuity of these habits. Then you will have defeated cognitive dissonance. By doing so, you have a new identity, one which you desire or dream of, If you at all dare dream.
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By saying I’m not disappointed, I’d be lying. I’m a man of principles, who likes to strictly follow them no matter what. In life, everyone has their perspective about life depending on their upbringing. The lens by which I view this world may not be the same as the one you view it. They can be as opposite like two parallel lines.
There’s nothing more to add on top because if you read between the lines, you’ll perceive the open and hidden meaning, it is very open. Unless you are not turning every stone and looking underneath. I have made a sound commitment to work on it and relentlessly work towards becoming the version of myself that I desire to be. It all boils down to self-control. A trait that is pivotal in reshaping almost every habit that you are struggling to unchain yourself from. The other pivotal trait is determination because with it you will consistently encourage your inner self to continue pursuing the goal you set for yourself.
Life is multifaceted. At one point, we opt to fail and go against our beliefs or principles. We fail not because we are antagonists but because life is an odyssey full of learning puzzles. Albeit, we tend to be the protagonists of our own lives, every protagonist needs a proper antagonist, and in the story of my life, entropy happens to fill that role well. Look, entropy is the most powerful and consistent law in life. Hence, fighting entropy is the most powerful decision that we can make each day.
Back to what I was saying, failing in life is just an open opportunity for us to question our conscience on what we want to become. Nevertheless, different people react to failure in various ways, that’s not for me to explain, it is too cliché. Instead, at a personal level, I hate failing and I will always take it as a challenge to outshine myself. I’m the wrong person to give up on, I go harder when the odds are against me. It might be my toxic trait. But, hey I’ve always had this intrinsic value situated inside my mind that nothing is impossible so long as you are willing to chase it.
Chase that dream, chase that goal you wrote in your New Year resolutions, chase that bad habit you want to recalibrate from and chase that grade you want to achieve. Do this relentlessly, while drifting away from your comfort zone, and you’ll be surprised at how much you will achieve.
The one who coined the phrase, the end justifies the means, wasn’t a fool. That phrase serves a very significant lesson. No one cares how you do it, how you get there is all that matters. They will only be interested in that final version of yourself, not the mucky version that was continuously falling while trying to reshape.
Writing is always a process of collective action even if only one name appears on the cover. The writing process is always frustrating and painful and at times mind-numbing before it becomes transformative, beautiful, and illuminating. That’s a feature, not a flaw. Writing isn’t like a Ford assembly line, where the “creating” process is merely a means to produce a final product, and efficiency should be maximized above all else. Writing is thinking. I mean thinking deeply.
This letter was born through a moment of tremendous flux and adjustment in my inner self, at a time when I was thinking about something dimensional, something transformative, something that had a trigger inside me, something that opened my eyeballs, something that may seem to have a hidden meaning but very transparent at the same time.
We can only make such revelations — like the one I’ve written — if we experience something life-changing, the aha moment. It happens when we call ourselves to a meeting and ask ourselves the questions why, how, where, and when while trying to derive answers to these queries without first asking people’s perspectives about it.
This will be a testimony to the inner self in the future. With that, I put a full stop to this undaunted letter.
I’ll see you around.
