I live in the most accepting community on earth… people are allowed to be who they are and live as they choose. I’m not sure I 
could ever leave and be completely happy.
I have a tattoo … truth is I have a lot of tattoos! None can be seen unless I’m wearing shorts. My favorite piece of body art is a rainbow Star of David on my right calf. It’s large and bright and done by Kat Von D … a world famous artist in Hollywood. Besides being really good … it was really expensive and I’m really poor … so I’m proud of it.
Recently, I was walking on Hollywood Boulevard and heard a guy behind me say, “Look, another Jew Faggot… they’re everywhere in this fuckin’ town!” … My first reaction was to turn around and knock the living crap out of him … just to welcome him to the neighborhood… but the light changed and I walked away very pissed off…
Did the guy on Hollywood Boulevard hate me? He didn’t know me… He saw a picture of an ideal he hated and I am not convinced he knew why he hated it. But something within him was so moved that he felt a necessity to express it. It was as if exposing my leg would exclude me from the sidewalk community and secure his place as a census cop.
I believe people fear what they don’t understand and hate what they fear.
The other day, I was thinking about what makes people leave their dreams behind, and follow the common sense. What is it that stops them from leaving the “frame” of the common beliefs about “right” and “wrong”?
Then, I came to the conclusion, that most people don’t have their personal evaluation of themselves, such that is independent from what other people think. Give it a thought! How often do words, said by other people, make you feel bad? How often, when somebody is calling names at you, these words manage to reach to your heart and make you feel sad, angry or unmotivated?
I made the effort, to create my personal evaluation of my personality, that has nothing to do with the opinion other people have for me! And by saying this, I don’t mean an evaluation that is artificially created; that you should consider yourself, to be something more than other people or that you deserve more than them!
No! By creating a personal evaluation, I realize my weak spots, but I ACCEPT THEM! I accept the fact that I am not perfect, and that not everybody is gonna like me, what I do or what I am!
Truth is that other people’s opinion about you, is a direct projection of their own views and beliefs about life! A person couldn’t understand that, what he doesn’t know! Often times we condemn and blame others for their actions, not because in reality they are sinners, but because we can not understand them!
Everybody lives in his own reality and in his world, you might truly be a “sinner”, but why accept living in somebody else’s reality?
When you allow other people’s opinion of you, to hurt you, that means, that you are the one who thinks that those words really describe you! If somebody calls you a “murderer”, you won’t get insulted, because you know you haven’t killed anyone! But if somebody calls you “stupid”, “incapable”, “liar” and you get insulted, that means that deep inside you really consider yourself to be that! You let others define you! You let them create your own evaluation and the worst part is that you start believing it! You start evaluating yourself, like “incapable” and “stupid”.
You let others make you “ a character in their own story”…a secondary character! You give up on your goals, dreams and beliefs, because you don’t have your own opinion about yourself, that is independent from what other people think of you!
And let me ask you, who is the person, who is always with you, in every single second of your life? Not your relatives, not your friends! That person is you! If you have eye witnessed everything that happened in your life, if you are the one who knows why you react in a particular way, and why you are chasing the goals you chose… why would you let another person, evaluate your personality and who you are? How would it be possible for someone who doesn’t even know half of the things you’ve experienced, to define you and direct your life?
You can’t imagine how much more beautiful life can be, when you are the one who defines you! But not from those critical definitions! Not those, where you blame yourself for what you are not able to do or be! A definition, that shows your true self! A definition that will let you accept your weakness, but not put up with it!
Today, when somebody is trying to insult me, unfortunately for him, he can’t! Just because I don’t have such an opinion for myself and his words are just thrown in the space… words, that will hit at me, like in a wall… I wouldn’t accept them and they will go back at him! These words are a projection of his own understanding about the world and the person he is!
Give it a thought! When somebody gives you a present, and let’s say you don’t accept it… that present is left for the giver! It is the same with insulting words! When somebody is trying to hurt you, if you dо not accept the insulting words, they are left for him!
As for the guy on Hollywood Boulevard … go screw yourself! Welcome to my world!
This is my journey … this is my life!
Rob Cantrell
Rob Cantrell 