Next time you walk past a mirror, stop & reflect.
Look deep into those eyes for a glimmer of something real. Break through that facade that has taken several precious years to build. Through all the limits that the world has put on you. Take a good look at yourself.
The most interesting thing about you isn't the people you have surrounded yourself with. It's not the assortment of gadgets that adorn your fingertips, pockets or desk. Neither is it the long list of books you've read and several others you own, merely for others to comment upon. Nor is the rather eclectic taste in music that the pinball machine of life have bounced into you. The sips and dips you've taken, places you've gotten lost in or even whom you hooked up with & when.
It should've been you - just you. But you've lost yourself in incidentals. Thrown away yourself only to replace it with the byproducts of your existence. You became a showcase, instead of a person - with whatever you've got, perpetually on display. What you are suddenly was skin-deep and then it got ugly.
Maybe you were ashamed. Ashamed of who you were. It was fun to pretend you weren't anymore, but what truly changed? You or just a new mask? Wearing it, hoping that nobody ever comes into your life to whom you'd have to bare all? Keep it on forever?
Maybe you'll try. Maybe it was better than being nothing in the eyes of others. I said, maybe.
But just remember not lose all you've collected - at any cost. Because once you've lost yourself, that's all you got. That's all you got.
--What ever you can give up, that's all you have. The rest is what you are.