I love me. I do. Not in a megalomaniacal way, like I’m the greatest person alive and the rest of you could pound sand. I am in love with the person I am, and super excited about the person I’m becoming.

Do I always love everything I do and say? Hell no. I can act pretty stupidly sometimes. I can be selfish, sarcastic and mean. I can be lazy and over my lifetime I’ve been known to get really excited about some new thing, throw a whole bunch of money at it to get started, then just give up. I have been an asshole. That’s not me now.

I am completely comfortable in my skin. I am perfect in my imperfection. We are all perfect. We’re perfectly human, and there’s a tremendous amount of seemingly random imperfection in that. We are all Nature’s creations. What in Nature is perfect? I guess that depends on your definition of “Perfect.” For me, perfection comes with the understanding that the Universe doesn’t create ugliness. Our perceptions do, our judgmental natures and our own self-doubts. We are creations of this Universe, but the moment we become cognizant our minds are filled with, for most of us, the crap our parents learned from their parents, who learned it from theirs and back and back and back.

Do you suppose a mountain thinks to itself, “I wish I weren’t so ugly/tall/short/fat/skinny. My God, look at that disgusting boulder on my north face! I wish I were a rolling hill.” Do you suppose an Oak tree thinks, “I wish I were a Sugar Maple. They’re so beautiful in the fall. All I do is drop fucking acorns!”

Who I am is a Conscious Man on a path . The Lakota call it the Red Road. The Red Road is a road most people wouldn’t dare to walk. It’s not paved, nor flat. It’s full of potholes. Deep ones that make you look down and think, “shit I don’t want to fall in there” and then you jump in, root around hunting for all the dark shit inside you, look it in the face for what it is, then climb back out and keep walking. There’re also loose rocks, bloody knees and hands, twisted ankles. Is there another road? Sure, the Black Road. It’s nice and smooth and straight. I could walk it in my sleep, in fact most people do. I’m done following that herd.

The best part of walking this path is that I’m not alone. I have a brave partner who has her own bloody knees. I also have a group of courageous men I walk beside. I know that if there came a time my pothole was too deep, any one of them would build a ladder. I’d do the same for them. On the Red Road you are never alone.

So is this it? I love me and who I am becoming so I’m done? Is that it? No. A conscious man is a work in progress. I’m still human. I’m going to screw up. I’m going to be a jerk. I’ll disappoint people I love, but I’ll keep jumping into those potholes, climbing out and keep walking. There is no turning back.

I love me. You should try it. I mean you should try loving you.

Wanna walk the Red Road with me? It can hurt like hell, but you’ll have friends. We’re getting really good at building ladders.

with love to all, Seth.