Your thoughts do not belong to you
My thoughts do not belong to me.
They are not mine.
Inherited.
Involuntarily.
My thoughts do not show me the way
but they have life—
and I give them that life.
I beat the heart,
I beat the drum.
Life, ambition, dreams—
I absorb the blow
of a thousand ideas.
Nothing stops the flood.
As long as there is light,
as long as there is heat,
ideas brew.
Bad ideas must die.
Good ideas must survive.
But there is no way to tell—
Sunlight cannot disinfect me.
The moonlight cannot guide me.
I must come out of it myself.
An important lesson I've had to learn is that my thoughts do not belong to me. They are given to me—taken from my parents initially, borrowed from my peers now. I cannot expect to run away from this. I crave the company of others too much.
But the expectations that come with these borrowed thoughts are not mine either. Some are worthwhile: be on time, be kind and courteous. Others feel heavier, more demanding. All of it is social judgment—sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit—that shapes how I move through the world. I live within social circles, and these circles have come to dictate who I am.
Yet I can choose to let go. I can release my grip on their approval and move forward on my own terms.
There is something both painful and liberating about stepping out of harmony with how others perceive you. I want to be liked. I want to be loved. But what does their love cost me? Does it come at the expense of being free?
For someone who thrives on words of affirmation, the thought of not needing praise feels like losing something essential. But maybe what I'd lose is the very thing that keeps me from finding peace.
