The Way

Many people don't know all that much about me. It's okay. I've moved on from wanting to be understood and valued as I am. I'm content in my own skin, now. It's something I fought long and hard to have. After all, there are over seven billion humans. You're likely to understand very few of them. Hell, probably more like none of them. Not even yourself.

The way in which I navigate each day is my own to choose. The things I choose to keep me alive are mine, alone. Though I'll probably always adhere to the common phrase "an it harm none" for the rest of my life, it isn't due to anything outside of the fact that this is how I wish to live. No one's going to punish me. No odd magical energy is going to force me to pay for anything I've done wrong. I live to the best of my ability and with the hope that I can improve the lives of others in small ways because it's the best thing to do. We're all we have. We've got to do it for each other. It makes everyone's lives better to improve others' lives, too.

There is a selfish goal on top of the rightness of doing the best we can to improve each others' lives. Humanity is definitely held together with a web of social necessities. No one is really their own island. Our brains are not built to be isolated, and we survive because we interact with each other. If everyone turned into an antisocial person, our species would die out. The genetic bond to life keeps us together.

My goals are similar to most other people's goals. That's the one good thing left about humans. No one really thinks they're trying to actively harm other people, unless they have antisocial personality traits. Luckily, that is a small portion of the population. The social need to better as many people's lives as I can, in the limited means I have drives me more strongly than others. Perhaps not as strongly as others still.

I'll do far more good than bad with my life. That much I can promise. No matter what happens. This is my guiding force. You don't need to understand if you don't want. I've got this.

Purity and tightropes be damned. I'll do what I can, for as long as I can. You can keep slashing away at my attempts. You can yell at me all you want about my lack of purity. I'll keep trying to be the best version of me as possible. You just do you. I know it's easy to fall into looking for ways in which you are better than me. I don't really care about that, though. You're not my new priests. You don't get to minister to me, either. I'll do the best I can with what I have, and if you feel better about yourselves when I fail, then maybe that is me helping you, too. In the end, I've done more good than bad.

As I come back into myself and the present I live in, I'll hang on to this.