What objective are you striving for?
Is it to find greatness? To maximize fulfillment? To attain balance?
These are popular goals to shoot for in life. But my answer to this question is a lot less glamourous.
I strive to be real.
Each and every day, I seek to stay grounded by a singularity of purpose.
I tend not to sugarcoat things, or put on airs.
Instead, I say what I mean. And I do what I say.
The premise is simple. If people know what to expect of me, they can count on me to deliver.
The congruency of my words and actions builds trust. That trust speaks volumes. But it also keeps me on my toes.
For being real is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once one gains a reputation of reliability, one is expected to maintain it.
Others expect me to be true to my word. And staying true to my word means staying true to myself.
This cycle keeps me grounded in reality. At least in theory.
In actuality, my sense of reality is different than just about anyone else’s. It’s inherently biased by my perceptions of my own experiences.
This contradiction is present everywhere I go, and on everything I touch. It’s perhaps most prominent on this website — Words of the West.
When I started this site, I labeled it as a forum where I would share my truth. Yet, that truth often belies the brand I’ve built.
The words I share here are not particularly western. These articles are not Cowboy Poetry, or the words you might find read at a Chuckwagon Roundup. In fact, many of them draw from my experience growing up along the East Coast of the US.
So, what gives? Why would I — someone who values being real — create a brand laced with inconsistency?
The answer has to do with aspiration. Words of the West is as much about the reality I seek to live into in the future than it is about the one I embrace today.
Let’s dive deeper into that statement.
In my view, there are three components of being real.
One component entails understanding your origin. It requires full awareness of where you came from, and how that shaped who you are today.
A second component entails understanding your surroundings. It requires awareness of the intricate web of context in the world around you, and how your actions will be perceived.
A third concept entails understanding your future. It requires the awareness that your reality today might differ from your reality tomorrow.
Unless we find ourselves running from a traumatic childhood, we can often reconcile with the first component. By the time we reach adulthood, we tend to understand how our origin impacted our perspective.
Yet, we often trip ourselves up on the second component. If we have a poor sense of self, we might spring ourselves into action without first considering the contextual consequences.
The words we say and things we do in these moments are impulsive. They lack a central underlying theme.
As such, we find ourselves with such unwanted labels as fake and two-faced.
A commitment to consistency can change this narrative. Aligning actions and words to a common line of thinking can help us build the social capital we need to be considered genuine and true.
This seems like the goal to shoot for. But we can, and should, go much farther.
For our reality will continue to evolve. And the more we can see around the bend, the better we’ll be able to stay on course through these changes.
This is what I’m seeking to do with Words of the West.
In my case, my origins are back east. My present reality is located physically in Texas and holistically within the context of modern American culture. And my aspirational reality — the reality I seek to achieve — that is what I write about each week.
Much like the west, the reality I aspire toward appears simple but is filled with hidden nuance. Its possibilities are wide open, yet its path is guided by a sense of morality. It tells its own story — one that appears grandiose but it never too big for its britches.
It’s the reality I dream of. But not the one that I’m ready to live into quite yet.
That awareness is what inspires me.
It motivates me to keep sharing my voice here. And it reminds me to stay true to the standards I’ve set for myself each and every day.
These objectives might not be glamorous. But they’re real.
And I wouldn’t want it any other way.