Living a Transparent Life

Thursday, July 21, 2011
You know, the older I get, the more I'm coming to value transparency in my life. I don't like to keep secrets - they give me stress, and hiding events or aspects of my life from others does nothing to promote my own growth as a human being.

Each event or aspect of my life, good, bad or indifferent, has helped to shape who I am. Every decision I've made, good, bad or indifferent, has taken me down a path that has led me here, to the person I am. If I don't own those events and decisions, I deny myself.

Becoming the person I am today was a hard-won victory. The journey was intense, and full of heartache, and I won't cheapen that work by rewriting my own history to make myself or others look better.

As my friend David says,
If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying. And sometimes, those mistakes are doozies. Accept that people can twist their lives into knots, and help them untie them. There are too many people in this world who only want to make those knots into nooses, and that’s just not right.

Don’t tell me who you were. Tell me who you are.
Just so.I still have regrets about certain decisions I've made over the years, but I'm over the guilt.

3 comments:

David said...

You are the sum of your stories, and you can't ignore the ones you regret without lessening who you are now.

From where I sit, I think you're doing fine.

Tom said...

If I hadn't had all the trials, I'd probably have turned out differently. Better? Worse? How am I to know?

At least I'm still here. I think that's better than the alternative, but again, how am I to know? I think I'll just be me, and be content that I am.

Beatrice Desper said...

I think if I were faced with the same choices again, I'd do things differently. Otherwise, that means I haven't learned.
Getting over the guilt? I was brought up too Catholic, so I'm still getting over that. Any suggestions are welcome.