I watched Monster’s University with my nephew a few years ago. There’s a scene where the characters start chanting, “We’re okay” (because that’s the name of their fraternity). As we were watching it, my nephew started walking around repeating, “We okay. We okay.” That little voice of innocence sometimes resounds in my mind, “We okay. We okay.” I hear it when I start getting too down on myself… “We okay. We okay.” I hear it when I get mad at myself… “We okay. We okay.” I hear it when I start to feel overwhelmingly sad… “We okay. We okay.” This thought of being “okay” doesn’t mean that my experience is different; I don’t feel less sad, mad, etc. But it normalizes it. Because I’m human- it’s okay to have these experiences.
I was reading a little bit of Carl Rogers today. He thought that the most impactful way to approach people is with unconditional positive regard; i.e. a person is acceptable the way they are. He said something so amazingly beautiful about allowing a person to be “okay” where they are,“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.’ I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
Because, you see, we okay.
This crazy experience called the human life is not really in our control. None of us choose to be here. None of us really know what’s going on. And in the process of being, we feel so many things hoping to enter into our finalized state. So when we feel sad (or whatever other emotion we tend to feel), we are upset because we’re not at our end state. But that’s just it. I finally get what Rogers meant when he said, “The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.” We are never finalized. But we are okay. Who you are, who I am, at this very moment is okay.
Grow, never change. Sometimes I say that. Because the core of who a person is (I suppose that’s personality… I still don’t know what personality is), is completely acceptable the way it is. But we can grow. We can change. And in the process of it all, we okay.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” – Carl Rogers
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