Rules or Wisdom

The ruler of the Universe has fixed our pathway and we can walk in it with eyes open or shut. ~Prof. J.R. Buchanan M.D.~

Great day!

I hope this post finds you well.

If not, stop what you are doing and smile! You may feel strange, but try it!

Our path ▪️ Our mission ▪️ Our journey ▪️ Our purpose

Who tells us why we’re here?
Growing up, some follow in their parent’s or role models’ footsteps.
Having such awe and reverence for another and wishing to be just like them.
Others may not have had someone they looked up to or wished to follow behind -attempting to make their own path — finding their own way.
Either way is admirable.

I have always had a hard time finding someone to look up to. I can remember in school being asked to list role models and why, while everyone else was hurriedly writing I was drawing a blank.
It’s not to say I didn’t think there were amazing people to consider, it was just that when I thought of who I could list, some of their not-so-flattering characteristics would change my mind.

With a child’s mind, my understanding of a role model was someone with no faults, a person who could do and who did no wrong.
Growing up, I carried with me this idea that one should appear as to have their entire life in order in the face of any situation. Maintaining the ‘everything’s fine’ facade was like muscle memory to me. I feel like it took me entirely too long to get to a point of realizing no one is perfect.
My entire life was what could be considered ‘people pleasing’.
Living according to others’ standards. Living or attempting to live as others do. To be, talk and think like others so as to not cause issue or draw unneeded attention to myself. … A.K.A. … miserable.
Despite pretending to always be ‘just fine’ on the outside everything is ‘great’ inside I felt like I was being eaten alive.

Living for others was a vein that ran deep. It was my life, for most of my life and mirrored in everyone around me.
It was all I knew, and as I was living out this life, I was completely losing who I was. Everyone felt like my enemy; I hated myself and my ‘life’.

Mystical right?! NOT!

It was a shit show, more than not. Maybe more in my mind than outwardly visible but, all the same, I couldn’t keep up with that ‘life’.

As I went on, I realized that everyone we have to look up to throughout history, elected officials and people in general, have a past. People fuck up, make mistakes, have poor judgement, and act in ways they look back on in regret. People struggle, most times in silence, for some of those very reasons. I was coming to the understanding that people’s pasts do not always define them unless they choose for it to.

▪️When you know better, you do better.▪️

Everyone has the ability to make a conscious choice and be a better person.
To realize new ways of doing and being.
To stop following the crowd and find their own way.
Some may never encounter or experience this and lead a life free of regret and pure acceptance of themselves every step of the way.
This, may be exactly how their life was to end up, and that is amazing for them!

This poem describes my journey in an abstract way.
The journey back to myself was not and has not been an easy one.
I’m not even fully there and I don’t know if I will ever fully know me, in this life.
I discover new parts and re-discover parts of myself every day.

Patience, acceptance and understanding of self teach us to be fully patient, accepting and understanding of others.

If I sat on my stool and played by the rules
Being like them, I’d be so cool.
Instead I was the fool, drowned in the pool,
Work horse or mule and just like them, cruel.

Then something switched.
Mirroring the bitch.
In the tornado
Which way is which.
Deeper than a ditch.
Tone changed it’s pitch.
Ties that bind
losening stitch.

Pictures tell a thousand words.
Fake smiles looking more absurd.
Don’t whisper if you want your cries heard.
Daydreams at night — in the sky, you’re a bird.

Is it the tiger that changes stripes or the zebra.
Anubis guarding the scales balance of a Libra.
Memory wiped or a case of amnesia.
Wisdom inhered Sophia, Bathsheba.

Fear, shame or pride which one takes the lead.
More than enough or just what you need.
Steps bringing knowledge, new ways new creeds.
Integrate the messages, practice what you heed.

Change on a dime, new ways fresh mind.
Deep cuts to heal, lessons take time.
Out of the shadows into the prime.
Honest to a fault was never a crime.

Back to square one.
Who knew it could be fun.
Gypsy life or on the run.
Garden of fruit; apple or plum.
Questions have answers. Sum of all Sums.
Take it or leave it, bread leaving crumbs.
Walk where you’re guided.
Path graced with light of the Sun.

~Ruby L.S.~

©️2023I.S.

Thank you for taking the time to connect with my work.

⁂In Love

🪶Introverted Sage

Originally published at https://introvertedsage.substack.com.