Growing up I had an affinity for genies. I loved watching
I dream of Genie and was fancied by the blue genie in
Aladdin. I recently realized that for the majority of my life I was living like a genie.
Like a genie, my life was devoted to the people who came into my life. I would ask myself how I could best serve them. What I could do to make them happy. I worked tirelessly to grant wishes, even if they didn't align with my own. I thought life revolved around pleasing the people around me. And as every genie knows, it is impossible to please everyone at once. I found myself in a balancing act between acting one way around some and another way around others. My true self was lost somewhere in the middle. It was exhausting. The funny part is that I actually thought that was how life was supposed to be. I actually thought that the solution to my own unhappiness was seeking to make others happy. I had glimpses of true freedom- the moments where I would say no and set boundaries, and the times where I would listen to my intuition rather than the whirls of opinion. But the sense of obligation I felt often overpowered that truth. I had a false sense of happiness, peace, and love. One where I was bound to others in such a way that I had lost my self.
I now know true freedom. One where I don't need people to tell me they love me to feel love. I don't need others to accept me to feel acceptance. I don't need anyone to physically comfort me to feel comforted. I don't need to depend on others to feel genuine happiness. I am free. Limited only by the limitations I think to be true.
That little lamp, that old way of thinking and behaving, is too small for the abundance of love, serenity, and abundance that now fill my life. I am grateful to finally be free.
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