I Belong to Me

You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.

Maya Angelou

Today is yet another Monday and while I slave over my thesis that gets harder each day, I had a very profound thought. We spend so much time trying to measure up and be who we think people want us to be that we forget to simply be. To be the person we are intended to be. Sometimes it is the case that we have buried that person so far in the recesses of our minds that we do not know that spirit and soul. All we operate with is the shell of a body that others try to fill with their expectations. At the end of it all we really having nothing to give but a poor copy of what others try to make of us. The world tells you to be yourself, but when you do they pick that being a part until there is nothing left. They deceive and tell you that they celebrate difference but then try to silence you when you are out of tune. The world is one giant hypocrite. But we still have to live in it with people who tend to break your spirit, intentionally and unintentionally. Are we then trapped in the identity we assume. The possibility of change an illusion that means the jokes on us. Is the quotation true: Being a slave to an identity is no different from being a slave to a human master…

Being free may mean not fitting in but can we be okay with that? Many of us want to belong and be a part of something anything, as long as we are moving with the tide. But in order to do this do we have to place ourselves in a box and stay there? If this is the case then I would rather not. I would rather not fit in and be a part of any one thing but everything that I feel compelled to experience. I would rather not be the rule but only the exception. I would rather not lead anyone but myself to where I need to be. It’s really true that the only thing you can ever control is you. You can control your narrative, your image, your state of mind and so much more that has to do with you. You have been entrusted with you, and how you show up each day, in this world will determine whether you are free or not. Many of us struggle with being free and never will reach that state. We have become too programmed to operate on the premise of what’s popular, what your friends think, what is right in the eyes of society; we cannot see beyond the cage we have allowed ourselves to be confined in. Though they spoke to her lived experience, I think persons everywhere can recognize the wisdom of these words left by Maya Angelou:

Being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are. … I think one of the most dangerous statements made in the United States, or descriptive phrases, is that it’s a melting pot. And look at the goo it’s produced