Billy’s Thoughts

Be Yourself

I was recently scrolling through one of those short video apps. You know, wasting time when I should have been doing something else actually productive. Anyway, part of a One Direction song was the last one I watched. I thought, “I never really liked them, but this song’s message, or at least this part of the song, is quite great!” Then I caught myself, and thought, is that actually the case? The part about not liking One Direction, I mean. This made me think of Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, and how I did like them when I was younger, but I never felt “safe” admitting that I actually liked them. It was only really later in high school, singing “Incomplete” by Backstreet Boys (a song about one of the band member’s close relationship with his mom, actually) with a friend in Carl’s Jr, albeit in a somewhat joking fashion, and in my early 20s when I finally felt “safe” saying to my friends and other people that I liked listening to Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, and Backstreet Boys more so. Thinking back, this is funny and ridiculous – allowing other people’s possible opinion of me and the music I liked to limit me expressing myself in a positive way. Which leads me to say:

Just be yourself – you’ll have more fun and the people around you will appreciate you for the smiles you put on your face and theirs. I know I had more laughter, smiles, and fun when I expressed my true music interests. You can do it! Take that step!

Moral Inspiration

At times I wonder what the meaning or purpose of life is, as I’m confident most people do, including you. It is at these times that I attempt to reassure myself that my purpose is to provide a good life to my family, my friends, my community, both in terms of material quality but also moral quality. Those attempts at reassurance do not always succeed, and I am left unmotivated, adrift, doubting my agency, my ability to achieve or even seek my purpose. But then, unexpectedly, or perhaps I was subconsciously searching, that inspiration, that impetus, that guidance appears, as it did a few days ago. Dear reader, let these words that reignited my sputtering flame be a source of light in your search for the confidence in yourself that you can achieve your positive purpose, you can seek and achieve that meaning – “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.” (“Invictus”, Henley, lines 15-16).

November 22, 2024

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