A more elegant writer might begin this blog with a properly formatted aligned definition of the word 'shadow' and in all its different incantations... I won't do that - but only because I tried and it didn't look quite like I wanted.
Also, I am not an elegant writer.
I'm not elegant by any means. I'm decidedly inelegant. Maybe a little lazy. Easy going. Pedestrian. Even if I wanted to appear to elegant I have structural elements going against me: I'm short, a little meaty, ruddy complexion. Trying to appear elegant, I fear, would just result in appearing very, very fake. And it would simply take too much effort.
I'm a simple person and I've learned to embrace that. I've learned life is a lot easier when you just go with the flow. Though there are certainly times you have to paddle against the current a bit, too much will wear you out... and wear you down.
So by embracing my simplicity I find myself, at forty-two years of age, decidedly poor and unaccomplished. I'm not sure that that had to be the case. I don't think simplicity and success are mutually exclusive ideals. By going with the flow I may have gotten stuck in shallow waters here and there. I've gone the wrong way from time to time.
And there were also times I tried to pretend I was something other than what I was and really got messed up (high school for example). But I guess that's part of growing up.
So now, as I've said, I find myself forty-two, poor and unaccomplished... short, chubby and ruddy skinned... While I've embraced a simple life-style and feel certain that it is the right thing for me, I have been plagued by insecurities. I have spent a lifetime comparing myself to others and feeling worthless because of it. Only recently have I realized that my insecurities were all self-induced. Like anyone else, I suppose, I tried to lay the blame on something outside of me. I blamed society. I blamed the wealthy. I blamed all those people with the good-fortune to inherit desirable genetics. I thought other people were judging me, when really it was I who was judging me - and judging them, as a matter of fact.
How much time did I waste hating myself and hating others because of my inferiority complex??
It doesn't matter now. I'm content to accept myself as I am, accept others as they are, and start living in the moment. Though I may not have much, I have enough. And even if I live in the shadows of those who have more, I will not judge myself for having less.
