September 14, 2013
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Esse Quam Videri.
If you’ve been out in public at all, you see people as they seem. It’s often rare to see people as they are, not just as they seem. Yet can appreciate how refreshing it is to meet someone who is truly as they seem to be. Shallowness is everywhere you look. Everywhere. Truly. Sometimes it feels like life is a giant masquerade. Putting on a mask and relating to people who are perpetually living in disguise is wearisome. You don’ t need examples. You understand this just as well as I do. Why? Because I tend to be one of them navigating through life as well.
I often say things like, “I don’t want to lose it.” Why? Where in the Bible does it say thou shalt not lose it? There are a lot of people in Scripture that do. “I don’t want to be emotional.” Where does it say thou shalt not be an emotional? Have you read Scripture? My ultimate favorite, “I don’t want to burden other people.” What I’m ultimately doing is not allowing other people to know or love me but it doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. I’ve never been good at being vulnerable and I like to appear to have it together even when I might not, like I’m doing the world a service or something. On the flip side,as much as I know that about myself, I simply enjoy listening. Often, I am not purposefully ignoring conversation about me. I know about me, I don’t need to hear myself talk about a subject I know all too well. I want to be there and to listen for the other person. That’s what is natural to me.
All growing up, the adults I looked up to most were the ones I respected for who they were as an adult, yet were still a kid at heart. Someone I could enjoy being around but also genuinely enjoyed being around me. A kids knows the difference. Sometimes, I wish I could be that physical kid again, but without the awkwardness and having to go through all those stages again. I wrote about that here, actually.
The same goes for my older friends. Sometimes I really hate the fact that my wisdom and understanding is handicapped by limited years of experience. I simply expect myself to know everything today that the adults in my life know at their current age. I try to convince the world I’ve got it all figured out, when I don’t. I’ve never had a good poker face. Seriously, I grin like an idiot when I have something good.
Esse Quam Videri. To be, rather than to seem to be.
With another year on the horizon, I’m deciding to leave the masquerade. I want to be, rather than to seem to be. I want to commit this year to acting as if and relating as if this IS my last year. I want to leave well, in every area of my life, even before I know I’m leaving.
In reality we should daily prepare to leave well, even if we don’t know we are leaving. I know looking back on my life that there were many situations I did not leave well. I simply do not want this said about me. I’m not yet at the age where I’m ashamed to say my actual age. Today, I turn 26. When purchasing something the other day, I was asked if I’m going off to college? I know I look young and this probably will always be the case but I’m told someday I will appreciate that. I don’t see that in the nearby future.
I like to think I am still somewhat young. Ask my grandparents and they would say I’m just beginning. Ask my basketball team and they hope they aren’t as old as me and still not married. It’s all about perspective. The reality is this. Today, tomorrow, 5 to who knows how many years could be my last day or moment. I may just be beginning but I also may not be.
I want to embrace the hurts , habits, and hang-ups that make me, me and believe who I am today is not the finished product. That “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” (Philippians 1:6). My identity, value and worth is set by the Creator. No one else.
Every ending is a new beginning. Here’s to seeing what road year 26 travels.
