So as weird as it sounds, when I was a kid I was like a big fan of things like High School Musical and The Cheetah Girls, I know weird, but let’s be honest those were some funk beats to jam to. After all these years, I still kind like the music from both aspects due to the nostalgic factor. One song that recently had a newfound impact on me was, “Do Your Own Thing” from The Cheetah Girls 2 soundtrack, due to the fact that it’s said something that I really needed to hear at the moment. I constantly struggle with fact that staying busy and being involved with others around me is going to aid me in my pursuit to grow and prosper to where I want to get in life.
Secretly, I also have the irrational fear that if I’m not doing something with friends, then I’m going to fade into the background and become forgotten into oblivion. There are times where I find myself trying to cope with this fear by always doing something social whether it’s spending countless hours at stereotypical coffee shops socializing or showing up early to an event and just hang out. This stemmed from the constant rejection and isolation that I faced as a kid from people around me. It wasn’t until one morning this past week, I was driving home from a class and “Do Your Own Thing” started playing on my Spotify. Normally this would have resulted in a solo jam session in my truck where I would sing along at the top of my lungs and dance like an absolute madman (I’m a good driver, I swear). Instead, I started listening to the lyrics, completely focused on them when I heard:
“Do your own thing
And live your own way
The world is all yours
Go out and get some more
Do your own thing
And live your own way
The world is waiting
Go out and get what's yours”
I would be lying if I said that these words didn’t hit me like a ton of bricks. So I know you’re probably thinking: “What are you even getting at? This literally was just a song that was intended for middle school-aged girl."
The words stuck with me so much because they opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t living life the way I should. I was living a miserable life of always staying busy because I had the ridiculous thought that if I didn’t, I was just going to fall off the face of the earth. This epiphany motivated me to make each and every day something that I can look back on because I lived life my way, not the way that I felt like the only way for validation was from spending around others. So if you take anything away from this I hope it’s that you feel inspired to ‘Do Your Own Thing”, whether it’s in life in general or just making time for yourself once in a while.
GO OUT AND GET WHAT’S YOURS!
