Wandering through life with a vain pursuit of self, circumstances eventually hunted me down and forced me to look into the mirror of myself. Standing in front of the mirror, with a tear running down my face, it took everything I had to see the stranger looking back at me. I became a person that I knew deep down inside I wasn’t, but I didn’t have the courage to come out of hiding. Numbing myself to the pain in life, I convinced myself that it was easier to exist behind a mask, paralyzed at the thought of being exposed. I exhausted myself trying to outrun my pain. This is not who I wanted to be. I was living life the way I wanted to live it, but once my eyes were opened, I realized that I wasn’t free. Flying solo in life left me tired, beaten down, and empty. I’ve tried so long to make it on my own that my hopes and dreams became scattered fragments of what they could have been.
Turning Point
Through the tears, I found the courage to shout out with a battle cry to the enemy: “I have allowed you to take much from me, but as long as I stand I will defend my children!”
Counterfeit
Have you ever paused and discovered that it’s so easy to get lost in the counterfeit? …or realized that we live in a world where the counterfeit seems more real than the real?
Check out this conversation between Morpheus and Neo from the movie ‘The Matrix’.
Why Is Integrity So Important?
What values do you want to pass on to your children? How well does your life reflect your core values?
Websters dictionary defines integrity as:
1. firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility
2. an unimpaired condition : soundness
3. the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness
Immeasurable!
Looking for my value, my self-worth, and my identity with position and success, I would always choose a safe retreat into my hiding place of counterfeit affirmation — selling my soul to my work. Receiving the glory of man through the recognition of another successful project; earning more money; advancing to that next, higher title on the corporate ladder, I continued to retreat from the pain and insecurities of my fractured life, protecting my empire as I chased my American dream with a blind devotion. The dream of this empire was something I wanted so badly that I failed to listen to that little voice inside trying to warn me that I was walking down a bad path. I would continue to perform on the world stage desperately trying to gain my identity. Ignoring the inner sadness slowly tightening around me, I didn’t realize that underneath this drive was a deep desire to just be accepted. I became a slave to my own empire, running without a purpose, and I didn’t even know it.