Vachon Imagined

There are rooms you do not belong to.

Rooms where your very existence, and what you represent to the people inside them, will not be welcomed. They want people who think like them, act like them, speak like them, look like them.

This is natural.

This is human.

But there is something else we can do.

Instead of spending our lives trying to control how other people see us, or trying to earn their acceptance, we can use that time to build our craft.

If your craft is becoming an artist, practice until you become exceptional.

If it is becoming an engineer, learn until your work speaks for itself.

Whatever it is you desire to become, become so good at it that the doors that were once closed to you cannot bear to remain closed.

Because sometimes our excuses, and the stories we place upon “the world,” reveal an insecurity we don’t want to face, that perhaps we don’t believe we are as good as we say we are.

So, take that revelation in stride.

Build.

Practice.

Become undeniable.

Not because you need their approval.

Not because you need to prove they were wrong.

But because your time is too valuable to spend standing outside a door, demanding that someone let you in.

Make yourself so valuable that rejecting you becomes difficult, and eventually, not in their best interest.

And understand something else:

You may never belong in that room.

You may never think like them, act like them, or become what they want you to become.

That’s okay.

The goal was never to become someone who belongs everywhere.

The goal is to become someone who can walk through any room without abandoning themselves.

Sometimes the door opens.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

Either way, keep building.

Because the greatest way to fit inside a room you don’t belong in is to stop needing the room to tell you that you belong.