100% human.

This week some big questions about life and humanity have begun to scratch the surface of my emotions. Sunday morning. Seems like the perfect time for questioning my being. So I have a serious and personal question to ask you. What is that one thing in your life that no one knows about. Or, what is that particular space in your heart that you spend almost all your energy trying to hide? You don't need to answer me, answer yourself.

When you say the word me, you probably feel pretty clear about what it means. It is one of the things you are clearest on in the whole world - something you have understood since you were a year old. You might be working on the question, Who am I?, but what you are figuring out is the who am part of the question - the I part is obvious. It’s just you. Easy. But when you stop and actually think about it for a minute, about what me really boils down to at its core, things start to get pretty weird. And what we do when that happens - we turn to labeling. Humans have an innate desire to place labels on everything. They give us a sence of order and a way of distinguishing things, but we are too complicated to have simple labels. And you know what? I spent years believing that others put me in a box. Instead, I did that for myself just fine. We put ourselves in a career box, a identity box, a sexuality box, a lifestyle box, a family box and a belief box, and we can choose to get out of those boxes anytime we wish. No one is holding us hostage. No one is locking us up. Nobody said it has to be this way. Except US. And boxes are small. You cannot breathe in a box. So don't stay in one. Our being continuously searches for meaning in life and in seeking it makes itself free as it opens to many possibilities. The possibility of failure, success, truth, lie, pain, joy, betrayal, trust, love and rejection. All these experiences are essential in the making our being to be truly human, to be closer to living a life fulfilled.

See, we all live behind the propped up versions of ourselves masking the shame, putting bandaids on the guilt or trying to suficcate the temptations all by ourselves. The problem, though, is that we weren't created to do it all by ourselves. We are created to need each other, to encourage each other, to love each other. And yes. I know what you are thinking - it's terrifying. I am the first one to say that it's scary to be completely honest, in fact, most of the times the person on the other side will reject us, will hurt us, or they are going to make us want to crawl back into our isolated cave. But please don’t confine yourself, it will end up hurting you more than benefiting you in the end. Go outside of your comfort zone. Risk it. That’s when the real magic occurs. You will always be growing as a person, you will always be changing. Limiting yourself by living under the label is like getting caught in quicksand. No matter how much progress you think you are making, you’re actually sinking down. You have control over your life, it’s your life after all. And by freeing your me from labels you will open a whole new world of opportunities for yourself that you wouldn’t know about otherwise. I know I did. Not for others, but for myself.

I remember that one quote I once read: “I made it a point for my life to be a collection of short stories, not a single novel. Many ways to have many lives, but in none do boxes work.”

I love what is said. Short stories! To me it's a gorgeous reminder that I can let myself shine no matter what my title is or is not. A single novel cannot define me. Neither can covers of short stories. You cannot put a label after getting to know just one tiny piece of the whole puzzle. I don’t need to be put into a box frame. For some time I thought I should, because fear was running the show. What if I don’t fit in? I better do what everyone else does. What if they don’t like me? I better conform. What if people think I am crazy? What if it doesn’t work? What if people say, “who does she think she is?” I don’t know what to call myself, and truthfully, it does not matter. I am creating my own place in the world. I hope you will consider doing the same.