Coming to terms with where I am - Rasta Wisdom

I'm am where I am.  Profound eh?  This is me.  My body, my life.   I hold myself under certain obligations - to my God, my Family, and my country.

I can't do this. I can't get as thin as Ben.  (okay, that's probably true, sorry Ben)
I can't get to a place where I can imagine truly loving and being kind to myself.  My selfish wants scream at me all the time - not talking about that.  I mean to find a place where I genuinely value me.  Where I place importance on my existence.

While in Jamaica last year I visited a craft market.  My guide, Ras Rody walked beside me and listened. I said to Ras - "These folks keep asking me to visit their store.  I don't have the energy and time to visit every booth here, but I don't want to be impolite!"

"It is also impolite to care for the needs of others, but not your own".

Hit me like a ton of bricks.

I don't care about my needs.  I jumble my needs - I re-state my needs as merely 'wants' - in an effort to control missing them, as they lay unfulfilled.  I suppose I do not NEED love, or romance.  I suppose I do not NEED a beach-body.  I suppose I do not NEED friends and people.  Those are all just 'nice things' to have.  Those are, collectively, gravy.

Today - actually starting about since the first of June - I begin to acknowledge what I need.  I begin to stick up for myself a little bit.  Today I look at my life and who I am and declare I'm pretty important - if not to others, I am to myself.


Below - photo of me at my heaviest, approaching 260lbs - 30lbs more than I am now.