How to be real rather than rehearsed?

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
_
Alfred D. Souza

Living far too long in the "gotta do" Land, one gets tired of asking himself, or others, what is the purpose in all this rushing and planning and moving on to the next new "score".

The usual answer is that you gotta pay the bills, you gotta guarantee your kids future, you gotta provide for yourself, you gotta find a mate, you just gotta... so you gotta make a list, a plan, you gotta be better and faster, you gotta keep moving! ...  It's true that we must be independent and self sufficient, but if we don't search or give any substantial meaning to our existence, sadly we don't add anything else and we become mere consumers of reality. Consumers of others time, consumers of products and consumers of stuff.  And of course, because we don't value our own self that much we become disconnected, in the worst case we start feeling sad and our self-esteem goes down the drain. "(...) Low self-esteem is not due to not thinking enough about ourselves but rather thinking too much about ourselves and how others perceive us."


So, go on with your "gotta's" but everyday, make an assessment of where you're going, of who you're becoming. It is never too late to turn back and start a new path. The biggest obstacle to self-realization/happiness is ourselves: "me?! get me!". It's the self-imposed dreams and goals and the never ending demands on life that set up our rhythm, our soul beat. Lets get excited, let's be foolish, lets talk seriously, but, most important of all, let's be honest with our own self. Lets be real rather than rehearsed.

"No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities. It's a shame to waste those by doing what someone else has done."
_
Joseph Campbell