BE THE PERSON YOU NEED - PART 3
May 1 2025
If I had my favorite shirt in every color as a kid I’d probably stop wearing it.
It wouldn’t feel special anymore. Just expected.
I used to have this one shirt when I was 5 that made me feel good about everything, myself included. It was a cream colored tank top that said “daddy’s girl” in pink sequins. Then, in middle school it was this navy blue long sleeve Vineyard Vines T shirt. I didn’t even like the shirt itself that much. It just made me feel part of when I wanted to feel part of – being from Jupiter Florida. Wearing the Vineyard Vines shirt meant putting on the embodiment of whoever I thought regularly wore this shit.
As I got older my new favorite shirt would vary by most popular brand. My one top from ~OhPolly~ instead of Shein. Over the years I’ve made a point to have quality clothes over quantity, so the “better brands” have excited me less and less. But just recently I was at a red light in my car, deep in thought over this, watching a bunch of people crossing the street on their bikes, and I realized that the key to happiness is keeping the things that shaped you close.
As the bar continues to rise in our life, it’s easy to forget what past-us would be excited about right now. But if we had everything we could ever want right now and absolutely nothing left to work on, buy or check off our minds, there would be this weird hollow boredom. We’d all have no choice but to turn inward and sit with ourselves. And maybe that’s the point. I went from dreaming of having a car, to finally getting a 22 year old car at 19, to my 2016 Mazda now. I look back and I was more excited in my old, dated car than I am now sometimes…having everything past-me wanted. Then I think about those people riding their bikes. They’re so happy to be here, full of opportunities, free of fear.
There are so many positions in life that we glorify in our heads depending on where we’re standing. If you continue to cherish what you have now as you climb the ladder of success, you’ll forever be carried by gratitude.
Basically what I’m saying is, what actually fills you is realizing you’re enough to entertain your own soul.
We aren’t meant to get everything we want at once. We aren’t meant to get everything we want. There’s more to life than what you think you want and I believe life will teach us all that. Slowly, painfully, and right on time.
Validation comes from within. I’ve heard that my whole life. Thought I grasped what it meant, but until I felt myself really living it, I realized my validation was coming from everywhere BUT within. When I think of ‘being the person you need’ I think of the steady presence I’ve always searched for: Calm, reassuring, with a sense of direction. That presence wasn’t missing. It was someone I was meant to become slowly, in real time.
The person you need already exists in you. Move toward that.
