Just what you want to be, you will be in the end

This is a line from The Moody Blues song Nights In White Satin.  The song has charted time and time again for the last 50 years by different artists.

This is not about the band or the song.  This is about the inherent truth contained in this line.

You are what you believe yourself to be.  If you believe yourself to be someone you will become that person.  You cannot create talent but you can create opportunity.  You can create dignity.  You can create respect.

None of these things will happen if you believe yourself to be the victim of your circumstances.  All my life I have watched people fail because someone else controlled their destiny.  I have seen some really talented people become beat down, screwed up, and broke because someone in the “system” they envisioned told them they could not do something or it won’t sell or some other reason.

I have known people who have become drug addicts and alcoholics because of this.  I have known people who committed suicide with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a .357 in the other.  One of my closest friends did this, someone who watched our wedding gifts while my wife and I went on our honeymoon, someone who was married to my wife’s best friend.

There Is No System.  For everyone who tells you No there will be most likely someone who will tell you Yes.

Willie Nelson wrote hit after hit after hit in 1960s Nashville recorded by other people.  He could never get support for himself as an artist because the established hierarchy did not think he fit.  He spent every dime of his royalties promoting his own small tours.

In 1970 he left Nashville and moved to a ranch in Bandera outside Austin.  As fate so had it he played a free political fundraiser for Democratic candidates in Zilker Park for a bunch of hippies from the University of Texas.  He played those hits.  They could not believe he had written the songs they had heard for most of their lives.  Word spread like wildfire.  Austin was an important place in their world.

A bunch of hippies at a free gig catapulted Willie Nelson to being a successful, well known artist.  This was the beginning of Outlaw Country music.  Someone who had been shunned by the Nashville establishment became bigger than any star they had seen since Hank Williams.

Never take No as an answer, go to someone else.  Carry yourself with grace and dignity.  Sooner or later you will find the respect you deserve.

I am a person, I’m not a number,
I am a person, not a digital excuse.
I am a person, I’m not a number,
I am a person with a name.

I am the voice of reason, crying to be heard.
Listen to me, listen to the wisdom of my words.
No one else can tell you how to realize your dreams.
No one else can tell you what the secret really means

Lorraine King, Tim Hamill, & Dave Parsons