I did something tonight that I haven't done all quarter. I opened my door. Now I've opened my door hundreds of times before, but this time I didn't walk through it. I just opened it, and stayed in my room. I'd like to say that from now on, I'm going to live my life transparently, with nothing to hide. I'd like for that to be true. But the truth is, that's only my plan, and too often in my life things don't go according to my plan. I say too often, but really I mean that it happens more than I want it too. For all I know things not going according to my plan could be a very good thing. In this case, however, I don't think so.
To live transparently. It sounds pretty enough, deep and thoughtful enough to make me sound all reflective and introspective and whatnot. That's what makes us cool, right, makes us better people because there's apparently something going on beneath the surface, we're not just about appearances and such. It's part of the reason I'm writing this online instead of on paper, because if it's online other people can read it and think better of me for my deep thoughts. I don't know if that's good or bad.
So what does it mean to be transparent? Actually, no, what I really intend to answer is what do I, Kyle Johnson, mean when I say I want to be transparent? And to answer that question as succinctly as possible, I would say that it means to hide nothing. Noble, right? Maybe. I'd like to think that it's a better way to live than what I'm doing right now. The main crux of this is not, however, to be blatantly obvious and open with everyone, revealing to the person you're sitting next to on the bus that which you are most ashamed of. That might be fun though. What I'm trying to accomplish with this is living with nothing to hide. Engaging and partaking in nothing that I wouldn't want to tell my parents, my friends, my God about. I figure if you've got nothing to be ashamed of, then there's no reason to hide anything.
So that's what I'm going to try. I'm somewhat optimistic about it, though the high of embarking on a new life direction has waned a bit. Only God knows the full outcome, but I'd like to think He's happy with me even trying.
