I Am Free Of Judging Myself By Others

Something shifted for me recently, and I think age had a hand in it. Insights seem to arrive more readily now. I've stopped measuring my worth against what other people think of me. The people who've done well in my field, or in any field, no longer set the bar I have to clear. For once I feel free to simply be myself. For a long stretch I felt like I was drying up, and now there's new growth happening in directions I didn't expect. I won't pretend the opinions of others never got to me. They did. But chances are that the person passing judgment knows no more about the subject than I do.

A word of warning: assert yourself and some people will meet you with anger. Often the thing a person defends most fiercely is exactly the thing worth challenging, and the payoff can be large. Who am I, really? Am I the person I want to be and could be, if I would just set down the influence of everyone's past expectations? I keep uncovering interests and abilities I'd written off years ago as out of reach. The open question now is whether I can trust my own read on things.

If you were a man, would you put on a suit cut to another man's measurements? My late husband fussed endlessly over collar sizes and sleeve lengths in his shirts. For myself, I've noticed I only like a song sung a particular way, and other renditions of it almost bother me. Does that make me correct or mistaken? Or have I just figured out what music actually sounds like to me?

A failure doesn't have to be the final word on who you are. So whose verdict are you living by? Return to the one person you ought to know best, which is yourself, and honor that. I don't mean this as license to run people over to get your way. Still, some people will be unhappy, mostly the ones who can no longer steer you. Our tastes are not all the same.

The role of peacemaker may not fit you anymore, the one who caves because somebody with a bigger voice is accustomed to deciding for the whole group. That same person ends up choosing the restaurant, which then quietly decides what you're allowed to order. Keeping the peace does lower the drama, sure. The question is what it costs you.

As I get older I'm becoming more sharply drawn, lumps and bumps and all, and some of that may not suit the people around me or line up with what they want (never what I want). So who am I, actually? And are there talents and interests still waiting in me that I could use to build a world of my own?

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