Dating : Dear Unicorns, Learn How to Be Yourself

This is for Millennials and the Unicorn Movement

We all make and take small lies for ourselves. I know I do. I know you do too. I’m old AF and I still send out pictures to the Instagram world that show how successful I am. How fun I am. How worldly I am. But I wonder, do these small lies add up and erode the foundation of who we are meant to become?

Ironically, I write under a pen name (so yes, you can see the irony in this piece). But hear me out, I like to write and swear and cuss and tell my truth. My truth isn’t for everyone and it’s definitely not for my mom. I want to help people find their truth, but I also don’t pretend to ride a magical unicorn that shits out universal truths (okay, maybe once in a while). On a serious note, I want to be real and have real AF conversations about how to find lasting relationships, love, careers, soul-feeding meaning and success.

Let me explain. I’ve lived abroad for 13 years. I got to the top one percent of my profession. I worked and worked and worked and arrived. I was riding the unicorn. But I fell into the trap of thinking I was also the unicorn. When I retired from my passion, I lost myself, and got hooked on finding truth. I’ve tried to travel, observe, and witness the world playing out their search for meaning in radiant faces, lines, values, debates, beliefs, cultures, and colors. This will never stop (well, not until we humans are extinct or Water World II happens). I’ve eaten on dirt-floor huts of Guatemala and dined in the mansions of the richest people on Earth.

Yet, there is no sustainable happiness, meaning, and peace of mind in this type of thinking and living. It’s like a drug. You get a bit of dopamine when someone likes your picture. When someone compliments you. When you get another follower. Feelings ebb and flow. There is however the ride within the ride. This is the process. The journey to self-awareness. This is the next level — from being the unicorn to riding the unicorn with a smile. This is where finding your authentic self may feel uncomfortable. Yet, at your core, this is how you will grow into the happiest, most productive, and joyful human you can be.

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning

Damn. You thought being yourself was going to be easier, right?

Hmm. I think not. The world doesn’t wait for you to find meaning. The world doesn’t wait for you to write. Or create. Or paint. Or make meaningful connections. Or build something you love. Or have less suffering.

Life is understanding that your life is unicorn to ride.

So go ride the steed already. Don’t wait.

There is no better time to find out who you are than right fucking now!

Why?

Well, look around, our world is starving for meaning, real connection, and good feelings. Good vibes. We don’t need more people stuck to their phones. We don’t need more unicorns. We need more riders. So what are we waiting for when it comes to being our most authentic selves and riding this bitch to the moon and back?

Okay, I’m getting peppy. Let’s slow down and start with a simple question:

When I was 35, I became depressed and anxious about being inside the American box rather than outside it. The problem is, Americans carry heavy weights (okay, ratchety-ass lead anvils) of social conditioning. Our society tells us to be successful. To buy. To consume. It tells us that we are different than the person next to us and that we shouldn’t accept difference because we will fall behind if we do. It tells us to get skinny. To get rich. To get white (and male). To be macho. To distrust. To get ahead. To be cool.

I was a teenager once and a single 40-year-old now. Not much has changed other than my hairline. Yet, at my age, a lot of people are still force-feeding their ego with foie gras, bucking their Unicorn status, and shitting magical Skittles out their bum like the Secretariat.

I guess if I was to make a rule about learning how to be yourself, it would start with learning to let go of what society wants of you. From your parents. Your friends. Your siblings. Real growth typically happens from the inside out. No one can make you feel pretty. Or successful. Or happy. Or content. Or balanced. Or understood.

Can you, at your core, say, “Fuck off ego! I want happiness, peace, health, purpose, and contentment!”

Ah hell. Who knows, maybe I just want more for myself and I write this so I feel better. Maybe I want more people to join me. To let go. To laugh. To cry. To travel. To understand. To empathize. Fuck, it’s so easy to get stuck in your box. In your comfort zone. To be right and always want to be right. Can you do more of what brings you real feelings of joy? Curiosity? Excitement? Love? Can you not let anxiety, fear, or doubt stab your search for meaning in the back?

Now you could say, Mr. Stay True to Yourself, drugs bring me happiness. Sure. That’s great. Bro, drugs bring us all happiness. That’s why we do them. But drugs are short-lived. Their chemicals are fleeting.

What is truly sustainable for your soul?

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none,” Shakespeare said.

Dots. Dots. Dots. Dots. Dots. All dots. Who knew chalk would be the metaphor for life! Life is a series of fucking dots! Success or happiness or contentment or learning how to be yourself never happens in a completely solid linear fashion. Life happens in a series of dots, during moments in which you choose to do or be something, to grow or master or define yourself by new values and beliefs.

Sometimes these dots feel like chaos.

But this chalk idea was from something I read from the book, The Courage to Be Disliked:

“PHILOSOPHER: Yes. It is a series of moments called ‘now.’ We can live only in the here and now. Our lives exist only in moments. Adults who do not know this attempt to impose ‘linear’ lives onto young people. Their thinking is that staying on the conventional tracks — good university, big company, stable household — is a happy life. But life is not made up of lines or anything like that.”

Life is a hundred trillion chalk dots orbiting each other every moment. This is chaos. So try to make sense of it. Move your dot. Live your moments. Remember being yourself or becoming what you wish never happens in a straight solid line.

Have the courage to be disliked and don’t be a unicorn (and write under a pen name).