"You can be anything you want to be."

I call bullshit.

This idea that you can be anything or do anything descends from our social theory of individualism and the American Dream. Basically, if you work hard enough or want it bad enough, you can have or be anything. Many parts of this social theory hold to be true in our experience. If you work hard, you can accomplish many of your hopes and dreams. And of course, life may get in the way and you may not.

The fundamental belief of this theory is that where you are is not where you ought to be, or where you want to be or need to be. At this moment in time, you recognize the value and worth of your future self and your future contributions, without seeing the value and worth of your present self and contributions. This idea is further conflated with ideas of gaining wealth, power and prestige. When we can "become the person we want to be," we will have the most to give and live our most meaningful life.

Of course, this day rarely comes.

Our idea of who we are going to be is just a projection. Undoubtedly, it creates a picture of where we want to go, and this picture shapes our actions and choices. We move closer to the projection, but the projection itself always shifts and changes. The result is that we are exhausted and after all this work, we feel unfulfilled.

The alternative is to wake up in the world in which you are currently living. You choose to embody the person that you are, in the world as it is. When we can embody this genuine presence, we discover that right now we have the resourcefulness and initiative necessary to meaningfully contribute to the world around us. We begin to engage and participate with the problems and tension of our present day.

Through our presence and contribution, we discover that we continually shape and create the world, that the world around us is not "some thing" that we simply experience as a bystander, but that it is continually unfolding and undergoing creation and destruction.

Our world doesn't need more people who are going to be the best versions of themselves in ten or twenty years. We need you now. We need you to be the beacon of light in the space in which you are living.

The work that we need is not the outer work of doing, but the inner work of being.