To Be (seen) or Not To Be (seen) - part 2

What am I willing to sacrifice?

In John C Maxwell’s book the 21 Laws of Leadership, he talks about the Law of Sacrifice. In this law he goes on to specify that in order to lead a movement or mission or purpose, one must be okay to sacrifice SOMETHING. For some, this can look like the sacrifice of personal space and time - think of celebrities that are in the public eye. Their fame and noteriety comes at the cost of their privacy - and sure, they can pay for extra security, it doesn’t stop making them any less fodder for the regular civilians. For others it can look like their actual life - think of Martin Luther King, the example in 21 Laws of Leadership or Malala Yousafzai who was literally shot in the head for standing up for their causes. While many of us might not aspire to those heights of “being seen”, our brains see those situations and uses that as evidence for why we shouldn’t be seen.

If we just bring the example of the law of sacrifice for being seen closer to home, how many hours of your life have been spent arguing on the internet, defending your idea, or answering questions to folks who just want to have an opinion? I know I personally have spent too many. Was it worth it? Maybe. Eventually I found it less effective to comment on other people’s pages/opinions and more effective to just rant/educate on my own page to folks who were ready to hear what I have to say - but is that truly being seen? Or is it strategically being seen?

I don’t have the answer. These are just the battles that rage on in my mind around this subject.

When I was working and hustling so hard to get my point across about body image and authenticity I was brought to the brink of breakdown and burnout - was the sacrifice worth it? In some respects, yes. In other respects, no. While I impacted the lives of so many individuals both through my business and online, I sacrificed time with building true authentic relationships with those closest to me in an effort to be “seen” by more people, more clients, etc.

And when you are seen at a certain level, it becomes lonely because there comes a point when more people are rooting for your failure than for your success. (Aren’t humans wild?) so unless you have built an incredibly strong foundation of friends and family of whom you can trust unconditionally in addition to your own self worth, being seen will cause you to feel worse, before you feel better. This is what we see when folk have a huge impact on the world, but feel worthless and alone.

Being seen comes with sacrifice, but when done right and with the best intentions and focusing on fulfilling your purpose for others AND yourself - I think it can make being seen easier. It definitely isn’t easy, but it gets easier.

The other sacrifice we sometimes have to make is saying NO to opportunities that might bring us fame and seem like they might help us be seen, BUT they are out of alignment with the mission/purpose. It might come close, you might find a way to justify how it still works, but if it is truly for the mission/purpose - no justification is necessary. So, sometimes we have to say NO to the shiny ways of being seen in order to hold out for us to be seen in the way that we are truly called to be seen. I think this is one of the ways that we can do it right - for ourselves. In order to be seen by the people who need to see you, you might need to let go of a shiny dream of living in a penthouse apartment in upstate New York or let go of the desire to travel non-stop for a year so you can focus on helping those in your immediate community.

I think it’s important that when it comes to being seen that we ask ourselves:
”Who do I want to be seen by and what am I willing to sacrifice to make that happen?”