I am everything. I am nothing. I am free.

Honest self perception is an oxymoron.

There’s really no way to view yourself in any rational way because you’re sitting in a position of perpetual bias. Sometimes for better, often for worse. 

There’s a saying out there... I don't remember exactly how it goes, but it's essentially about how your inner voice is often the harshest, and how you wouldn’t talk that way to someone you care about. So, speak to yourself from a place of love. 

That’s nice and all, but it’s not what we actually do (most often, anyway). 

Maybe this supportive inner-voice is more important now than ever, with the selfi-generation. These days, self worth seems to be defined by the quality of your online picture, your posts, number of likes, the comments (oh boy, the comments), etc..  

So many young people are modeling themselves into a caricature of who they really are. A snapshot moment-in-time serves to define an individual, and when this generation is old and grey, I wonder if they'll even remember what they were really like, throughout their lives. Will they recall the things that spoke to their soul? The things that moved them, and made them feel more (or even... less) alive? 

Or will they instead just remember how many followers they had?

In my life, I've encountered (and in some cases, grown close to) people with strong personalities. Inevitably, these are also the people I look up to the most. In fiction, these types of characters are also my favorites: A person/character that leads the way, pushing that-which-does-not-matter aside. A person of purpose and action. Someone that most often rises above the noise of the little things (and for these personality types, almost everything that isn’t helping is a little thing). There's one of these personalities in my new book, Lies That Bind. You'll know her when you meet her.  

Maybe true self perception isn’t possible, because you’ll always view yourself as more (or, sadly, less) than what you really are.  

Or maybe, even in the real world, a person is whatever they think they are.

I am everything. I am nothing. I am free.