NOTHING MATTERS MORE THAN YOU
Other things can matter more than you,
but only if you so choose.
What matters will always be a judgement you make. Even when you attribute higher importance to something else, that act of attribution proves your power to defer and bestow authority.
Whatever we put above (or below) us, shows what we don’t want responsibility for.
Not that we are inherently responsible for anything.
Responsibility is not an object.
No one can quantify or measure it for anyone other than themselves.
When somehting goes wrong, what do people say? “Who’s responsible for this?” Responsibility is not the rule of law and is always available. The more responsibility we choose to take on as our own, the less of it we will be doling out to others, and the more authority we therefor gain.
No one, in reality, owes anyone anything.
Unless of course you’ve bought into certain beliefs systems that say so. And again, even if that’s the case and you were raised to believe so, your choice to believe, and especially hanging on to that belief system into adulthood, exhibits how much of it is your choice.
If you can’t do anything about your own beliefs, then how could you do anything about anything?
Your choice to believe, is what makes any belief system matter,
YOU make it matter.
Just like Tinkerbell, it can’t even exist without your belief.
Anything or anyone you judge as mattering more than you is fine, because it is also within your power to give your power away wherever you choose. There is power in giving away your authority.
Whatever matters more than you, only reveals where you choose to defer authority and responsibility.
Example: World peace.
When I choose to make world peace (or the lack of it) MY responsibility (whether it really is or not is irrelevant), then I feel the burden of all my thoughts and actions in relation to that desire or goal. Obstacles to it won’t be overcome by judgment, and instead require me choosing actions towards my desire, and that don’t hurt or control anyone else (since my responsibility is to create a world of peace).
If I, the only person I can force to act, isn’t responsible for the lack of peace in the world, then who will be?
If I need the entire world to join my style of thought and action to achieve what I want (in this example world peace), then I either become demanding of others, or dependent, and either way I cannot affect change.
You’re free to grant authority wherever you do not want responsibility, it’s your birthright.
But to chose dependency is still authority,
Infants (complete dependents) control their parents as much as the parents are in control of them
You always matter most, but how much responsibility you accept (not blame or fault, ever) is your choice.
Just know:
The amount of authority / responsibility you give away, is the amount of suffering you will experience.
And the amount of authority / responsibility you allow yourself is the amount of suffering you will cause.
That is why most prefer to defer responsibility and authority, especially on important matters, to anyone else.
But when we want something, really desire it deeply…
the best way to take actions towards making it a reality would be to embrace it as completely ours.
This removes obstacles, by transforming them into skills we need in order to overcome the challenge. It removes blame and judgment of the world and others and focuses our mind and actions on the task at hand and what we ourselves can do about it right now. It takes us out of the abstract conceptual space and gets our hands dirty so we have a genuine motivated interest in cleaning them, hence achieving our desire.
The hardest part of pursuing our passion for a living or “being an artist”, is trusting our desires and taking full responsibility for the suffering it causes in others, for starters, by exposing to them that they let their dream die.
When you understand that just to be an artist, that pursuing your passion will cause others unseen pain they might even blame you for, then you might have a chance of making a living as one.