Being born is a gift.  Conducting one’s life acting out of one’s personhood and not merely as a functionary within some organization continually honors this fact. 

However when you allow yourself to be defined by a position or title—or in any other objectified manner—you essentially turn your concept of self into an abstraction.  You become an object to your own life, rather than the subject.

Moreover making one marketable and saleable, as if a commodity, for the attainment and acquisition of things makes one’s sense of self quite precarious and vulnerable to external forces.  It is then understandable why so many feel the need to (try to) control everything.

Moving further away from the concrete person you are, you separate your self from your self, and unavoidably from others shortly thereafter.  Instead of trust—which we need—we have fear.  We fear that we will not have enough or gain enough or reach a high enough status.

If you wish to live life fully as a human being, then don’t allow your self to be consumed by the pursuit of things of outer value. Believing that actualizing one’s potential happens from getting and having is not the way to a meaningful or even a peaceful existence.

Perhaps it would be wise to cease climbing and start caring.  Care about being and becoming.  You must first embrace being human before you can become the human being that you potentially are.

Those who do great things in this world don’t give up the gift of (their) life to a role, a position or possessions.  They live authentically giving (their) life’s gift in each moment—the essence of leadership. To quote e.e. cummings, “If you can be, be.  If not, cheer up and go on about other people’s business, doing and undoing unto others ‘til you drop.”