On Being Unrestrained.

We all seek to find our place in the world. Or in our world, whatever that may be. Our high school friends, our college environments, or even the guys we meet up with at the bar.

We make sure we're the best we can be or, at least, the best we can be in our own microcosms. While this isn't a bad thing in itself, I'd like to challenge this line of thinking. It can cause us to do things we don't like, for a time far longer than we'd prefer, to impress people we generally cannot stand. It's a phase we all go through.

Eventually, though, we face the idea that the miniature world we live in will eventually end for us. We graduate, find a new group of friends, start frequenting a different bar, going to a different gym...and making major changes in our lives. Of course, this revelation tends to come later rather than sooner for most. When it does, a radical shift occurs (hopefully).

That organization you've devoted ludicrous amounts of time to suddenly falls from its pedestal into the superfluous areas of your life. That girl you tried so desperately to chase, impress, and win over instantly becomes just another relatively unimportant human being. That person whose achievements struck you with awe, overnight, loses that luster in your eyes.

The illusions we built for ourselves instantaneously vanish as we come to understand what our true desires are, freed from our narrowed perceptions. We regard ourselves as the oft-maligned #1 that we have so grievously neglected to satisfy the wants of those around us. We can understand that our egos have been malnourished; our desires improperly fed.

We then recall every instance where we held back for fear of offending another with our brilliance, overshadowing another with our talent, upstaging our peers with our own excellence. Perhaps we'll feel anger and resentment toward ourselves; perhaps we will regard these memories as learning experiences.

Regardless, we begin a period of apathy and rejecting everything that isn't aligned with our pursuits. It's empowering, and it makes us realize, once again, just how far we can go beyond our perceived limits. We no longer will undertake a project that we are uninterested in. We refuse to change ourselves so egregiously to be acceptable to another. We cease to censor, by others' standards, our own personalities and gifts.

Then, we feel that the world is at our feet. From that moment, we are forced to answer the questions we have put off for so long:

What do I want in life?
What dreams do I want to pursue? Can I pursue more than one of them?

When these questions (and vastly more of them) are answered, then begins the road to our own futures.