This Will Only Hurt For A Second
- jlcopeland73
- Nov 9, 2021
- 4 min read
I'd be lying if I said I knew what I wanted to do my whole life. When asked, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I could never pinpoint one specific field, industry or path. Mainly, I wanted to be a professional athlete of some kind. I just wanted to play sports. That's who I was, that's how I identified for most of my adolescents.
A funny thing started to happen as I grew older and in to my high school years - a strong passion began to take shape - I fell in love with writing, theater and forms of entertainment across the spectrum of the field. From actors to comedians to preachers to motivational speakers.
The fundamental issue most of us have when asked, "What do we want to be....." is not within the question, because, actually, the question is all wrong in and of itself.
We are asked, time and time again, the wrong question. Instead of "what" that question should be reshaped to "who".
Not that this isn't as complex in it's depth as "what", but the groundwork is far more tillable. In essence, we are not working out the who we are first. I can tell you growing up and to this day; I love speaking and working with people. There is an innate compulsion inside of me to want to help, to want to give back and be apart of something bigger than myself.
It's a calling. My boys have this same exact calling.
These "callings" are what help us define the path to "WHO" we want to be which leads to the "WHAT" we are going to become down the line. However, this baseline question is not answered at an early age for so many - it's a gaping hole in our development. This institutes a level of fear that can and is, far too often, never over come.
So, "WHO do you want to become....?" How do we find the answer?
You know where it is. I know you know. When you have a decision to make, typically the big ones, there is that guttural instinct; it is that very first answer response. This answer climbs its way from the deeper depths of your stomach to the midst of your spine and through a back window of your mind. You don't want it there because it freaks you out. You argue with it and the fear that is associated with the outcome of that answer and the potential result it could yield.
This first response is what I believe to be God's voice. Gut instinct, God, Buddha, whomever you associate that voice with; it's typically the route to be taken. But since we aren't sure, we aren't secure, we aren't knowing of who we really are and what we are really capable of because of years of asking ourselves the wrong question; that shit scares us to our very depths.
Why can't we chase what we really want? Why can't we go after that thing we can't stop thinking about? Far too often, that dream is something we want so badly, but are so terrified to take a step towards the light we allow it to die. It never becomes reality. It never breathes. We never associate ourselves with the possibility of being that writer, that singer, the actor, the CEO, the great father, the loving husband, etc.
Fear wins.
Fear wins because insecurity started to grow so many months or years prior and we never cut it out. Or, better put, we never determined how to manage it. Courage, bravery these things are not absent of fear. No. They are born from it. One of these easily lives without the other.
Our uncertainty in who we really are, who we really want to be never allows us to get to the answer of WHAT we want to be or how to get there. Stop for a minute, stop for an hour, stop for a week, whatever time you need and figure this out first. Own it. If you do not, nothing will remove that fear from your life. You can not grow, you can not move forward, you can not succeed in the way you're meant to until you know this baseline, foundational answer. Who do you want to be?
Once you find the answer, be unapologetic in your pursuit of your WHAT. Be unashamed. Do not give two shits about what anyone around you has to say; I don't care if it's your family, friends, neighbor, mailman, dentist or Karen from the supermarket. Fuck them and move. Fuck them and start to LIVE.
No one is going to do this for you. No one is going to hand this to you. One of the greatest tools I possess within my life toolset is that I know who I am and WHO I want to continue to be.
I AM afraid to fail, but I love living within the fire of the possibility. I sleep with the fear that it might not work out. I AM someone that GETS UP. Each time I fall (and this has been often), I rise. Falling is something I have grown comfortable with and in this discomfort I know that I learn. I grow. I become stronger, better, a little bit wiser and one more day closer to that ultimate success I am yearning for.
As so many greatest things in life go, it will only hurt for a minute. I can promise you, the pain of failure will pass. The pain of loss will pass. The pain of disappointment will pass. So why not, if all these things are true, be YOU? Why not let YOU shine as opposed to something manufactured by the conformities of life? Why allow this one opportunity to slip? Because you're scared? Because you don't know how to get there? Because your parents are shit? Or is it because you haven't answered that one question.....?
WHO do YOU want to be?
Once you allow yourself to become comfortable in the discomfort of knowing the answer, on the other side of that answer.... Freedom. Pure, unadulterated FREEDOM.
J.L. Copeland
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