FollowCraig: Be Yourself

….and you’re still reading

I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure out how to just be myself. As a young man I was always told what I was to be when I grew up. You should be an architect, an accountant a lawyer and so many other things. I was taught to believe a certain faith and be of one political party. When my children were growing I didn’t ever tell them what to be, what religion or faith and nothing about politics. Let’s see who turned out best? I think the kids did. You see they found there careers, perhaps have found their own faith. So when I read the following written by; Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal” I felt like me!

“All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.”

I’m still writing, you’re still reading, so please keep following…….

Craig

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FollowCraig: Be Yourself (re-post)

….and you’re still reading

I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure out how to just be myself. As a young man I was always told what I was to be when I grew up. You should be an architect, an accountant a lawyer and so many other things. I was taught to believe a certain faith and be of one political party. When my children were growing I didn’t ever tell them what to be, what religion or faith and nothing about politics. Let’s see who turned out best? I think the kids did. You see they found there careers, perhaps have found their own faith. So when I read the following written by; Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal” I felt like me!

“All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.”

I’m still writing, you’re still reading, so please keep following…….

Craig

20120607-121734.jpg

FollowCraig: The story continues!

……Yes I was really a GREAT catch!

Do any of you ever remember or even imagine what it must be like for others to watch you and just go..“Oh s…, he sure is messed up!” Well, that was me! I was the messed up one. It’s funny now as I look back in time. You know, I really did not know what “Self-Centered” meant? Sometime later I will give my definition of this.

Rather than go on about me right now, let me ask you a question? What does it feel like for you when others have opinions and thoughts of you, you know it and yet no one really tells you? Perhaps your life is out of control, but you don’t want to admit it and you are certain you can control it. I only ask, because that was what was happening to me? It has taken several years a lot of learning and pain to be at peace today. In time, perhaps some of what I’ve learned can be used by others you may know or I may meet?

For me at this critical time in my life was hitting bottom. “Bottom?” That’s when your life is falling all around you faster than you can lower your standards”

So, what did I do? Nothing for a while…just kept going on like I always had..Craig First! However, some events were about to happen that would forever affect my life and the lives of many people around me…

…more to come, just keep following

Craig

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