ONE

I've spent a long time trying to attain to people's standards on who I was supposed to be. I've always tried so hard, too hard, to fulfil the potential otherS saw in me and that they wanted me to fulfil a certain way. I wasted so much time and energy trying to achieve these goals and results, but I never got A's. Always B, always short of perfect. You can imagine the frustration and the feeling of never being good enough and always disappointing. 
The truth is that in trying to be everything for someone else I somehow never even thought of figuring out how to be everything for myself. 
Thinking back now, a year ago, when I started this blog was the first time in my life I did something that allowed me to have my own voice and a place that was only mine, free from all the chains that I felt so deeply in my physical life. This website wasn't my escape it was my gym in which I could exercise my own muscles and figure out who I was in a space that felt so far from everyone else options. It gave me the freedom to explore and gave me the realisation that I was never getting A's because I was playing by someone else's rules. And it was only my fault for letting myself get in the way of what I could actually do and wanted to do. It's very hard to break yourself off social norms especially when you are in the arts - there is no 'proper path' and you're always looked down upon because you're not in law, medicine or economics, the only three subjects that actually matter (I have literally been told this). I was lucky that my parents never said we had to study any of those three things and left us the freedom to choose. But we are conditioned anyways, at my sister's high school graduation the only people that were praised in more than three speeches were the ones that were going to be great lawyers or doctors. Are you kidding me? Aren't we over this world-view? Apparently not. I'm not going to have a conversation here about the importance and meaning of the arts (although I'd gladly meet you in the comment section for this), but what I mean to say is that all the rest of us are meant t feel like we are not good enough. 
My blog has been judged and made fun of, in front of me and I'm sure behind my back, but for the first time it didn't matter. I have to be honest that the positive feedback FAR outweighed the bad, especially in the intellectual level of the compliments vs. criticism. For the first tim ever I was proud, because I had built something that I myself was proud of and no one could take that away from me. That's the biggest gift I could ever give myself. 
The first chapter has ended and I feel like it should be entitled 'The Treasure Hunt' just because it really was a hunt and search for purpose and reason. I don't think I have fully found my treasure yet, but I'm almost there, so maybe the second chapter is going to be about finding it, depends on what path I take standing at the next crossroad. In movies, this is moment is called the character defining moment, I guess that term could not be more accurate.

On another note, it's been a long journey exploring sustainability and I still feel like I only know 1% of it, but that's okay as long as I keep moving forwards with curiosity and will. One thing I have learned in trying to promote it, is that people are intolerant to inconvenience, and unfortunately that's what sustainability is to them. I'm going to really try in the coming year(s) to make it as easy, approachable and convenient as I can, because I believe that it can and will some day become our new normal. Any thoughts?