“You have to be something to be nothing.”

OK, I lied, I thought I would be ending my self esteem posts yesterday, but I stumbled on one more truth that puts these ideas all together, so let me put it out there, and I’ll move on tomorrow to something totally different, I promise.

One of the great ironies of life is that we are both something and nothing at the same time.

I really struggled with this for a long time until I figured out how they fit together, and once I did, I realized that like most conundrums, the truth was in its simplicity, but somehow the wires were crossed along the way.

As you know, you are something, which we discussed yesterday – you are, and you rock.  On the other hand, you probably have had a feeling from time to time that you are nothing.  Perhaps even at the same time that you felt that you were something and wondered how that could be the case.  Well, the feeling of nothing is a confusion that comes from the fact that when you put yourself in the scheme of the world, you are truly a nothing.  Clear as mud?

Simply stated, from the perspective of the universe you are nothing, but from the perspective of yourself you are something.  The trick is not taking the message from the universe and owning it as your own perspective.  If you do, it can obviously be damaging to one’s self esteem, since you are taking the perspective that you are nothing as your own perspective.

So if somewhere in you is a perspective that you are nothing, and it impacts how you feel about yourself, realize that this message got confused along the way, and that you took it in wrong.  You took in the message that the outside world was implying, but it certainly was not the message of the individual needs to incorporate.  So put your nothingness in its place (that you are nothing in the grand scheme of things), and make sure your somethingness is in its correct place as well (that you are – and you rock), and all will be well!