The Mercurial

You dream all your life of making a difference in the world. You say you want to be a superhero. And one day, you wake up to find you have powers and abilities you never had before and you think, this is it, now I’m the superhero I’ve always wanted to be.

But your real powers were always there. To see the best in people, both individually and as a whole. To look at the world around you and see possibilities, potential, hope for the future. To trust people, encourage people, and help bring out the best in others. Those are your real superpowers.

You have to accept your powers. That’s the really hard part. You have to accept that your powers won’t make your life easier. In fact, they’ll probably make it more difficult. Accepting your powers means being open to struggle, pain, loss, as well as victory. You have to be strong, but you also have to accept being weak sometimes. You have to be accept your limitations and you have to accept the responsibility of being powerful.

The hardest thing, the absolute hardest thing, is…you have to accept and embrace being YOU. All your life, a hundred different voices have come from a hundred different directions, telling you that YOU are not enough, that YOU are failing at whatever your trying, that YOU are doing it all wrong, that YOU need to be different. YOU are not strong enough or smart enough or fast enough or creative enough or handsome enough or healthy enough or tough enough. YOU are incomplete, hollow, insecure, broken, weak. YOU are too sensitive, too emotional, too unreliable, too cowardly.

That’s how they want you. It’s easier for them to control you when you’re frightened, insecure, full of self-doubt and self-hate. And it’s easier to go through life safely, quietly, if you just listen to them and do what you’re told. BUT…

…If you really, really want to be a superhero, you have to embrace all the things you’re told are wrong about you and you have to embrace all the things that feel right. You have to be willing to fight to be YOU. Not fight other people but fight your own fear, your own self-doubt, your own self-hate. You have to accept your gifts and rejoice in them. Do you despair over being awkward, out of step, too easily distracted, too emotional? Those aren’t weaknesses, those are strengths.

That hollowness you feel inside? That darkness? That fear? You have to fill it in with the energy of “I am who I am, and who I am is good.” You have to reach out and reclaim yourself. Grab the lightning and grab the shadow and never, ever let go.