Thursday, May 24, 2012

Go ahead, JUMP!

I find myself recently feeling like I have just started to realize and live up to my potential as a person.  Like I have spent my entire life doubting what I am capable of because I always had someone telling me I could do better instead of applauding what I had done.  For the longest time, my mom has said to me, "As long as you do the best you can, I'll support you".  All the while, she knew I was capable of so much more, but she, in her German stoicism, left it to me to realize.

The thing about someone like me is that I've always been the fuck up of the family.  My older brothers were athletes, and scholars, who went to college on full athletic scholarships, and I was fat, little musician sister nobody really expected anything from.  And I had a father who expected perfection, but never could manage to deliver anything close to it himself.  The point is, I did the best I could, not really knowing what my best actually was.  I just kind of wandered around, doing what I thought I was supposed to do by studying music, but not really ever doing well at it.  Even now, as much as I love to teach, I'm not interested in going back to school to learn more about music.  I'm a little over it and all the pretentious, ego-maniacal people who fill the positions of upper level voice teachers.  Quite frankly, I don't care what degree you have, if you're an asshole and treat me like a second class citizen because I don't have a fancy degree, you're not good enough to even waste my breath on, better yet consider you my colleague. But I digress.

Now that I have seen just a glimpse of what success could look like, it makes me sad to know how much time, energy, money, and hope I wasted just getting by.  I never really wanted to push myself to do better, even though I know I should have.  In the last several days since I let my skeletons out of the closet to play, a switch has flipped inside me that means there is really no turning back from this point on the timeline of my life.  It's not that I want perfection from myself, but I do know that I'm capable of impressing graduate school professors and doing perfect score worthy work.  I know that I can work myself to edge of actual insanity and survive it.  I know that it's time for me to finish the weight loss journey by asking my body and mind to do things it's never done before and pushing harder than ever.

Every time I go out my door for a workout, I expect more from myself than I gave yesterday.  I know I can run faster, I know I can get stronger, I know I can work harder, I know I can live a better life once I get this enormous pile of shit out of my yard.  More than anything, I deserve more from my life than I've ever given myself permission to ask for.  Now that I know what I want more than anything, there is nobody to stand in my way except me.  And I, as human being and kick your ass then make you pancakes woman, am learning day by day to let go of things.  To get angry about things and direct that anger to the correct place, to allow myself to cry because I'm so sad on the inside that some days it's all I can do to get out of bed and lace up my running shoes.  I have never been allowed to feel all these things for fear of what someone else would think, and therefore, never really gave myself a chance to live up to the potential the universe has blessed me with.

There is no more denying it, I'm tapping into that potential, and it's a scary thing, the unknown.  What I do know about the unknown is that, while I may never be a legendary singer or performer or an amazing teacher, I will be a star in my own right.  There is no nobler deed than helping another person reach their potential.  I have a team of people, including me, who are helping me reach mine so that I can go out into the world and eventually help other people reach theirs.  There is nothing more scary than standing on the edge of a cliff and picking the right moment to either jump off of it or walk away.  Ask yourself these questions: Are you really living the life you want, or are you settling for what you think you want?  Are you really living to up to your potential, or are you too scared to take the leap of faith?  Go ahead, jump!  It'll be the most amazing, terrifying, exhilarating thing you've ever done.  And when you land, you'll look back up at the cliff, and wonder why you didn't do that sooner!

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