The Assignment

Oct 12

7 min read

Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I belong? What's my purpose?

These are questions we've probably all asked ourselves at some point in our lives. We spend years searching for answers, trying to figure out who we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to do.

But what if the answer has been right in front of us all along?

What if the assignment is you?

Everything Except Ourselves

We spend so much of our lives focused on everybody and everything except ourselves.

We make our families, children, relationships, jobs, race, and even gender the assignment. We make what somebody said about us the assignment. We make proving somebody wrong or getting someone to understand us the assignment.

Sometimes, we even make complete strangers the assignment.

Think about how much time we spend going back and forth with people in comment sections because somebody said something we disagree with. We argue, explain ourselves, and try to prove a point to someone we may never meet.

For what?

I'm not saying we shouldn't speak up for ourselves or stand for something. I believe in standing for something, but I've also learned that everything doesn't deserve my energy.

Someone else's behavior is not my assignment. How I respond is. What I give my energy to is my responsibility, and so is recognizing when something is taking me outside of myself.

Because if everything is your assignment, when do you get to work on you?

Truth Work

Maybe we make so many other things our responsibility because dealing with ourselves can be uncomfortable.

It's hard to sit with our thoughts, acknowledge our feelings, and tell ourselves the truth, especially when that truth challenges the person we believe ourselves to be.

So we find distractions.

Some of us work constantly. Some stay in relationships we know we've outgrown. Others drink, smoke, shop, have sex, scroll through social media, or spend so much time taking care of everybody else that there's hardly any time left for themselves.

We stay busy because being still means having to face ourselves.

And what happens when everything gets quiet?

You're left with you.

That's the assignment.

People talk a lot about shadow work, but I've come to understand it as something simple: truth work.

It's being honest about who you are, not the version you present to the world or the representative you send into rooms.

It's acknowledging your choices, your mistakes, the people you've hurt, the things you've allowed, and the ways you've hurt yourself.

It's recognizing that you can be a good person and still have done things that caused harm. Both can be true.

And sometimes, the hardest truth is realizing you've been the villain in your own story.

The Villain in Your Own Story

We usually think of a villain as someone who intentionally hurts others. But have you ever considered the ways you've hurt yourself?

Every time you said yes when you wanted to say no, made yourself smaller to make someone else comfortable, or begged someone to choose you instead of choosing yourself, you were sending yourself a message.

You don't trust yourself.

You're not a safe space for yourself.

You don't love yourself.

That's difficult to acknowledge, but remember, this is truth work.

For more than 30 years of my life, I was the biggest villain in my own story.

I didn't love myself.

I thought I did. I probably would've told you that I did. But now that I understand what loving myself actually looks and feels like, I can acknowledge that I wasn't giving myself the love I needed.

I allowed things I shouldn't have allowed. I stayed in situations I knew weren't good for me. I silenced myself and expected other people to give me something I wasn't giving myself.

But I don't say any of this to criticize the old version of me.

I love her.

She got me through a lot, and she was doing what she knew how to do with the understanding she had at the time.

We hear people talk about operating from their higher self and leaving their lower self behind. But I've learned to embrace my whole self.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I don't have to separate myself into versions that deserve love and versions that don't. I can acknowledge my choices, take responsibility, forgive myself, and love the person who made them.

Forgiving myself allowed me to begin trusting myself again. I became a safer place for my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

And now, loving myself feels easy.

Not because life is easy or because I have everything figured out, but because I no longer surround myself with people and situations that require me to betray myself to keep them.

Less Is More

I used to want more.

More money, more people, more opportunities, more accomplishments, and especially more love.

Now, I find myself wanting less.

Fewer people. Less noise. Less explaining. Less proving. And honestly, less love from other people.

Not because I don't want to be loved, but because I no longer depend on everyone else's love the way I once did.

You know the saying, the greatest love of all is self-love?

I get it now.

When I already have the greatest love, the love I receive from other people becomes an addition to my life rather than something I need to feel complete.

There's freedom in that.

I don't need to convince someone to choose me. I don't need everyone to understand me, and I don't need to keep proving that I'm worthy of love.

I can simply be myself.

And knowing that changes the questions I ask.

Does this deserve my energy? Is this mine to carry? Am I helping someone, or am I trying to save them? Am I doing this because I want to, or because I'm afraid of disappointing someone?

Most importantly, am I loving myself through my choices, or am I abandoning myself to keep someone else?

I've spent enough of my life working on assignments that were never mine.

I want to focus on my own.

Bringing the Human Back to Humanity

Something I've realized is that working on yourself doesn't mean becoming so focused on yourself that you forget about everybody else.

I believe it's the opposite.

The more I understand myself, the more it changes how I show up with other people.

We talk about legacy all the time. What are we leaving our children, our families, and our bloodlines?

But I think there's a legacy much bigger than our individual families.

Humanity.

Our children have to share this world with other people's children. Our families have to interact with other families. No matter how different we are, we're all part of the human race.

And somewhere along the way, I think humanity forgot the human in humanity.

That's why my mission is to bring the human back to humanity.

Why should we have to remind another human being to treat someone like a human being?

I don't have to share your beliefs to respect you. I don't have to live the way you live to recognize your humanity, and I don't have to understand every part of your experience to treat you like a person.

Imagine what could change if we spent less time trying to make everybody think like us and more time becoming the people we say we want to see in the world.

If I become more loving, there's more love in the world. If I become more honest, there's more honesty. If I stop passing my hurt down to my children, that's less hurt being carried into another generation.

I don't have to change everybody.

I have to take responsibility for changing me.

And maybe if you work on you, I work on me, and others do the same, we'll begin to see more of the world we keep saying we want.

That's what being the change means to me.

When the Assignment Changes

Another part of knowing the assignment is recognizing when something has completed its course.

Sometimes we hold on to people, relationships, jobs, goals, and even versions of ourselves simply because we've invested so much time in them.

We tell ourselves we have to keep going because we already started. We made a commitment. We told people what we were going to do. We don't want to disappoint anyone.

But what happens when continuing requires us to ignore ourselves?

I've learned that changing direction doesn't always mean giving up. Sometimes it means finally listening to yourself.

I don't have to keep doing something simply because I've always done it. I don't have to continue showing up in places I've outgrown, and I don't have to force myself to become someone I no longer want to be.

I'm allowed to change my mind.

I'm allowed to grow.

I'm allowed to let something be complete without making it a failure.

Because I'm the assignment too.

And my purpose is to be the change I want to see in the world.

I don't know exactly what every chapter of my life will look like moving forward.

And for once, I'm okay with that.

You Are the Assignment

If there's one thing I want you to take away from this, it's that you don't have to spend your life trying to change everyone around you.

You don't have to prove yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you or continue carrying responsibilities that were never yours.

You have your own life to live, your own truths to face, and your own relationship with yourself to build.

So the next time you find yourself asking who you are, why you're here, where you belong, or what your purpose is, consider looking somewhere you may have overlooked.

The mirror.

There is your assignment.

There is your answer.

You.