“That’s your calling.”
After a role play exercise in one of my graduate school classes, my professor said those words to me in front of the class. I guess whatever character I had portrayed, I did a really good job. My stomach dropped and I began to sweat because the idea of somehow missing my calling has haunted me since I was a little kid. And here I was in graduate school for something that was NOT acting with a professor telling me acting was my calling. Had I wasted my Theater degree? Did I miss my calling, my chance, my destiny?
Clearly, my professor’s words were not malicious or meant to drive me to question my life choices! And luckily I have practiced listening to my own voice for years now so I bounced back quickly. But I think back to that comment because it shows how easy it is to be swayed one way or another by the words of someone else.
Another well-meaning person, a friend of mine, once told me that I needed to work on being happier for other people when they experienced something great in their life. Cue the tears and the hours agonizing over whether or not that was true. Ultimately, I decided it couldn’t be further from the truth and that everyone shows up for others in a way that is right for them. But what happens when we internalize comments (well-meaning or otherwise) from others? What happens when they carry more weight than our own thoughts and ideas?
You lose a strong sense of self and begin to act in ways that do not reflect your values.
Look at the great divide that is the United States right now. If human beings were more practiced at slowing down, being vulnerable and listening to our own voices, I have to believe we’d be able to see when lies are being shoved our way. Look also at the diet industry. New miracle diets, new “healthy” food information and new appearance expectations come out all the time. Rather than seeing them for what they are- someone else’s opinion often based on limited research, we eat it up, so wanting a new thing to latch on to.
I implore all of us to begin to SLOW DOWN enough to think for ourselves rather than allow our lives to be dictated by the voices of others. Isn’t life too short to be swayed by a million other voices, none of which know you like you know yourself?!
One book I will always keep on my bookshelf is The Four Agreements, A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz. The second agreement the author discusses is “Don’t Take Anything Personally.”
Don Miguel Ruiz writes: “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.”
I would like to make a vow to myself to listen to my wants, my ideas, my longings. I’d like to think of the voices and ideas of others as valuable while being able to let their advice or other comments roll off me like water if it’s something I don’t need.
I hope you will be able to do the same, because you deserve that!