Who Loses?

The time to be yourself is now. You can defer it if you like, and try to conform to whatever societal cage you've chosen, but it'll still be there when you turn out the lights. In the quiet moments you'll reflect, and what you are compared to what you want to be will curdle inside you and leave an unsettled feeling in your gut. Come the morning such feelings may fade, but its like silt at the bottom of a stream bed; it takes only a little to mix everything up again. This year has been formative for me. I've come to terms with who I am and opened myself up in ways that once would have been beyond me. I'm a guy, and as such it's ridiculously, some might say unnecessarily hard to be vulnerable about anything, but I hadn't counted on being married to pretty much the best female in the world. My wife has been a safe haven, and I can honestly say that I have a stronger and deeper love for her now than ever. Not bad given we're now in our fifteenth year together. But I digress; what I'm saying is that whatever you are feeling, whatever makes you who you are is an important question. Perhaps the most important question. I hate the way society tries to impose invisible stereotypes; and dislike even more how easily we let it happen. Should and oughts, must and must not; invisible walls that cage and suck the vitality from us. I hate it. I reject it. And if you feel caged in the way I did then ask yourself the following; are you happy? Is what you are satisfying? Are you genuinely being the person you want to be? I expect many of you are not, and if so I can do no more than implore you to shed those shackles. If you've people who love you be honest with them; but more than that be honest with yourself. Only therein lies the problem; we're so good at hiding the truth from ourselves, or trying to sugar coat reality into something we can cope with. Yet isn't this a sorry way to live? What a charade? What a lie. And for why? Who loses? As if you didn't already know the answer to that.