002: Who I Am and Why You Should Listen to Me

It doesn’t matter and you shouldn’t. Perhaps I’ll elaborate further and give you reasons why who I am and subsequently what I say don’t matter.

I’ll ask you some questions first, if I may.

Who am I to you? And further, what basis do I have on your life? I am but a face in the crowd, indistinguishable from the everyman. Yet, here I stand atop a throne of my creation declaring that I alone have the answer. Yet, I do not have the skills you need or want, but still, I persist that I am required. Does any of that check out?

I could declare the knowledge gained from the greatest universities and the mentoring of the greatest men. I could declare the years of wisdom I have obtained in lands far across the sea, with people who have a true understanding of the world and one's place in it. I could declare the vastness of my research of anything and everything under the sun. I could declare all these things and still, it doesn’t matter. I do not declare these things, as one could get lost in the experience of an individual and mistakenly equate that to sound advice.

I look around at the people in my life who are not noteworthy in their accolades, yet I look up to. Someone whose experience doesn’t come from awards or medals, diplomas, but simply by the way they live. In a world that is constantly searching for the next extraordinary person, don’t be so caught up that you don’t notice lessons and values in the ‘extra ordinary’ people around you.

I am not special in any way and that is fine, I don’t need to be. I am not strong nor am I weak, I am not intelligent nor am I unintelligent, I am not above anyone nor am I below anyone. My only abilities are to string words together in a way that is pleasant to the ear and take in words from the amazing individuals around me to make me a better version of myself. 

However, I am not ‘that’ better version of myself, yet. This page, these articles, are not lessons to you the reader, but me as the writer. Lessons I have yet to learn, ones that will lead me to be ‘that’ me. This is my place of conviction, my very escapable prison of potentiallity. I am the subject to which I write and I am the man that needs correcting.

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”

― Thomas Paine

So, let us return to the original problem. 

Who am I and why you should listen to me?

This question is not to you, reader, it is and always will be a question for me. Who I am doesn’t matter, but who I could be matters. Why I should be listened to doesn’t matter, but who is listening does.

The better question would be, ‘Am I listening to the man I could be?’