Reinvention is about being vulnerable with the most important person in your orbit - yourself - and sharing that with others in such a way that shifts your own narrative and perspective. At the very least, reinvention requires a willingness to show up authentically and be accountable for yourself. It’s not just about behaviors or appearance, but something much deeper that can provide so much more insight into what’s happening below the surface. Demanding vulnerability within yourself is not easy, but why is it so difficult to be brutally honest with yourself? Introspection plays a more significant part in our day-to-day lives than most people want to believe because it’s what happens when your thoughts go wild and bloom in your subconscious. Within moments of self-reflection is when the seeds of reinvention are sown; whether or not we are aware of these seeds is unbeknownst to us, but growth is what happens when you least expect it. Being open to these buds of introspection is at the core of being human - even if you let those seeds achieve their ultimate goal and bloom into the deeper truths, fears, or desires that would otherwise be suppressed by doubt. Reinvention is part of growing and evolving to our higher self - whether that be good or bad is entirely up to you.
An old adage states that evil never dies; it simply reinvents itself. As we see on an ever-changing basis, evil continues to live, grow, and evolve in the same way that light, love, and, more importantly, “good” does. Throughout history, there are (unfortunately) so many examples of evil and how it takes control and how it holds onto power. The way that evil continues to be an omnipresent figure in our lives and its eternal chokehold over us is rooted in reinvention. From the beginning of time, evil has proven to be sneaky, attractive, and inevitable. Evil, as an abstract concept, is hidden away in all of us (some better than others), and it knows exactly how to play into the best and the worst of us - our fears and doubts, our desires and our dreams and it feeds on all of these “good” seeds being planted. Being that evil is so good at taking those negative thoughts and amplifying them, making an active approach to not fall into evil’s grasp of our psyche. The tricky part is that sometimes the over-amplification of evil can do just as much harm when overshot to an extreme “good.” The balance between the two extremes is the space providing the right conditions in which dreams can bloom. Pushing yourself so far in the perceived direction of “good” can also create a toxic positivity that prevents one from seeing the accountability and vulnerability needed to grow.
Repeated throughout history, each “present time” religiously and emphatically cultivates hate and, as a collective, lets evil grow, but there is also so much good to celebrate and to root for. In a much-shared quote meant to provide solace and comfort, Mr. Rogers encourages us to “look for the helpers” in times of crisis; “you will always find people who are helping.” While this is meant to create a mental space inviting you to look for that inane good in the world, why wouldn’t one want to further that and be the helper? Looking for helpers in the cacophony of shit means removing yourself from the expectation that you’re in charge of the situation and accepting that you’re looking for someone else to step up - when do you step up? Not everyone is meant to be the person who is going to run into a disaster situation, but there are more ways than the obvious that can be used to provide a juxtaposition to the natural evil in the world. All of that to say in the simplest of terms: what are you rooting for in the world?
