“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

― Aristotle

Leading our lives is like sailing in the vast and unpredictable sea.

At times it is calm, smooth sailing. Without any warning, the water becomes choppy and we find ourselves in the middle of a storm, a storm within ourselves.

Often, this storm could be triggered by a sudden event in our lives that cause us to lose who we are.

A gut-wrenching death in the family, a painful divorce, an unbearable split from your partner, an unjustified sack from your job.

Often, things do not happen on their own. As we feel the sting from one misfortune, another bad event occurs such as finding oneself single and jobless in the same week. When we feel frustrated with one thing in our lives, we also tend to let the other things in our life slip.

When these things occur, it feels like we are being dragged by the currents underneath and we can barely catch our breath or hang on long enough to pull ourselves out.

But there is another kind of storm we experience.

This kind of storm brews slowly and it is constant. This is when we feel the chronic pain of not having any real direction nor a stable sense of who we are, where we belong.

As we grew from children to young people, we experience life not just through our eyes but through the lenses that our environment provides. The worldview of our parents, our society and our self-imposed ideals.

In time, these worldviews become our own. The values we experienced and learned become enmeshed in our own set of values. Our life experiences then start to add on to those learned values. Sometimes, they are compatible and go seamlessly together and sometimes, they clash.

What we want as adults differ from what our parents want for us. What we want as an independent person differs from what society wants for us.

We start off trying to appease all different angles because that is what good little girls and boys do. Over time however, our own individuality, our unique self is screaming to be who we feel destined to be. To do what we feel is our purpose to fulfil.

Now, we have a dilemma. An inner conflict. The makings of a perpetual storm.

The old us wants to hang on, be the abiding person and maintain status quo. The new us want to break free, become the true version of ourselves.

If we choose to move forward, we are taking a plunge into the unknown. We don’t really know what will happen. Will we be happy with our new self? Will we find acceptance? No one knows but one thing is certain, if we stay still, we will remain in the storm, struggling to keep ourselves afloat.

Moving forward requires us to shed our old selves, like skin of a serpent. Who you were will always be a part of you, how could it not? But we need to accept that we cannot live as that person once before if we want our reality to be different.

As we shed our old skin and try the new one for size, we encounter new dilemmas, new conflicts.

We find that we want to hang on to the familiarity of the past, we also find that finding a new skin is time-consuming, tedious and sometimes discouraging. Many will not accept the new you and will discourage you from moving forward but those people weren’t ever cheering for you in the first place.

They like you as how you make them feel. It is not about you. They make it about them. Simple response: go find other people who will cheer you on.

Finding your new skin is much harder than continuing with your inner storm. Familiarity is comfort. Even the bad kind.

Your new skin will chafe, it will be too stiff and tight at first. It will feel false but in time that becomes your new reality, your real skin.

And now, as you stand in your new skin, you suddenly feel lighter. You suddenly feel like you are no longer in a storm, battling the seas and struggling to find your direction.

Suddenly, you are sailing.