"Living in Alignment: Embracing Your True Self Through Failure and Exploration"

Not that kind of alignment, and no, your hips still are not ‘out’.

Instead, are you living in alignment with who you are, who you were born to be?

We are born into this world peeing and pooping on ourselves, not knowing where we end and where the external world begins. Everything we encounter is fuzzy and needs to be tasted and tried. Our communication is comprised of extremes, much like a modern-day political debate. We cry and scream or smile and giggle.

As we grow we start to see how we fit into the world. How we are from the world and not just from mom and dad. The scale of how this occurs will vary greatly in all of our lives, but I believe that the earlier we find out who we are meant to be, that our life gets exponentially better from that point on. There is only one route to finding out WHO you are, and that is to fail.

To try and to fail. To try to walk and fall. To try to swim and almost drown. To ask that girl out and get turned down. To jump off the roof and break a leg. To forget a line in the school play. To serve our country and risk life and limb in the process. The sooner and more often we test ourselves the sooner we find out WHO we are.

Stop trying to find out WHAT you are supposed to do. You are not a producer of things or services. You are a person and once you find out what your -ness is, then the production of things, of art, of services will occur as a byproduct of living in alignment with your true nature.

For parents out there, allow your children to fail early and often. Allow them to solve interesting and difficult problems. Do not shield them from criticism, but do not neglect effort and ingenuity amid failure. Give them opportunities to lead. To grow. To find out who they are.

I didn’t realize it for a long time, but I sought out many avenues in an attempt to find my true self. Drugs, alcohol, girls, adrenaline, travel, things, money…none of it satisfied me or made me content. What I had to realize was that while all of those are components of things I enjoy, or at one time enjoyed, they were not ME.

I’ve always relished time alone, and now know why. To be by yourself and to truly test your truest self, to ask the tough questions, to sit with emotions, and to contemplate the WHY of what you are doing, are all essential components to figuring out the WHO of you.

There has been no other time in human history when social mimicry and the resulting lack of personal identity has run so rampant. So I simply suggest unplugging every once in a while. Get outside. Do hard things. Sit by yourself. Have tough conversations. Ask yourself why you do the things you do, why you respond the way you do, where you come from, and ultimately who you are meant to be.