God has been listening to my thoughts and my prayers. I’ve been seeing it so heavily over the last year especially. I have the job of my dreams, a job that allows me to do what I love as well as being an influence on the youth. People that I prayed for have entered my life. I feel like I have finally become the person that I set out to be three years ago and still growing. But despite all of this good, the old me still comes out every once in a while, and tells me that I don’t deserve to have this life. He tells me that it’s only a matter of time before all this ends and you revert to the person you once were.
Because of my past, I have developed the mindset that good things won’t last forever. Growing up, it seemed like something great would happen to me, I was hearing and seeing all the right things, and literally overnight, it would all go away. I mean, this happened in almost a continuous cycle, year after year. It happened so often, so timely, that I had begun to expect it. I put my guard up, built a wall around my heart, protecting me from being comfortable in a good situation and ready to brace for the bad. Now, even in the best situation I have ever been in, that wall is still up, not allowing the good to enter my soul and stay in my soul.
It doesn’t make any sense, yet I still do it. I start second guessing myself, falling back to the kid that I distantly remember. The kid with imposter syndrome, the kid that feels selfish for putting himself first. The boy that feels that he is not worthy of the love and work that he has put in.
I deserve it. I deserve to have this life. I deserve to have everything that I have.
I don’t say that in an entitled sense, like it should be expected that I have what I have. I feel much the opposite, lucky, grateful, in awe of the life that I live. I would have never dreamed of this. Rather, I mean it in more of a loving sense.
We all deserve to live the lives that we desire. We all deserve to be happy. We all deserve to feel love. Nobody, not a single person on this planet is an exception to this.
You deserve it. You deserve to have this life. You deserve to have everything that you have.
Remember that you cannot change what is out of your control. On the days when you feel like something is about to go wrong, you are worrying about what you cannot change. Let go of all those thoughts. Be in the present, understand that if you are doing everything that you’re supposed to be doing, then you deserve everything that you have. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you think you deserve, the more you will gain. And if you think you don’t deserve anything, you won’t have anything.
I have been stressing myself to death worrying about what other people are thinking, what is going to happen to me next. What if it everything get taken away from me tomorrow? I have to stop that way of thinking. At the end of the day, if it does end tomorrow, it just means that I am ready to move on to the next chapter of my life, the next chapter that I deserve to experience.
Life in the way that I see it is an uphill climb. On the way up, there are going to be bumps, slopes, and crevices that you must endure. These challenges are going to make you think that you don’t deserve anything, that you should just give up. And you will certainly have to take a few steps down on the way. But keep climbing up, don’t stop. There is no end to the climb. That’s life. There is no pinnacle, no top of the mountain. The climb goes on forever. That’s just how it is.
Not every day is going to be better than the one before. Some days are going to be downers, doing nothing but overthinking, wasting time. Sometimes, people are going to have something to say to me, and that is going to disrupt my whole flow. But those are just some days, not all days. One awful day does not mean that you still don’t deserve to have good days after.
This is getting rambly, so the last thing that I want to say is that you don’t need anything or anybody to validate you. You don’t need money to determine if you’re successful. You damn sure don’t need other people’s opinions to dictate how you feel about yourself.
Feel the feeling of worthiness from inside yourself. Remember how excited you get just to hop out of bed in the morning to watch the sunrise. Find your mind, your body, your spirit, and connect them. Then free yourself. Flow through this beautiful day. Remember what it feels like to just appreciate being alive with all the memories, people, and places that have shaped you. You are worth it. You deserve it.
