Greetings, Council Members!

Like many of the (actual) young(ish) humans of Earth, I, L the Alien, constantly swing back and forth between a state of total faith in my own awesomeness and a total lack of faith in my own awesomeness.

Becoming an adult human is a frustrating dance of highs and lows; a strange collage of blind confidence and crippling insecurity. It’s pretty confusing, honestly. One day you’re like, “Hells yea I got this responsibility thing on lock down,” the next day you suddenly remember you forgot to pay a bill while mopping up your own vomit.

The point, Council, is that humans make lots of mistakes. It’s hard not to screw things up unintentionally once in a while, because as we say almost daily here on Earth, shit happens. But what about the mistakes that we consciously make?

Most specifically I’m talking about the stuff we clearly know is not getting us any closer to becoming That-Person-We-Want-to-Be, but that we keep doing anyway, sometimes for many decades of Earth years, without ever really knowing why, and without ever really trying to change.

Logic tells us that we can become That Person whenever we want, by getting our priorities in order and then giving each of them the exact amount of attention they need to yield results while simultaneously stopping behaviors we know are risky or destructive to our goals. Obviously the real process is more gradual and complicated, but if we really wanted to get our act together once and for all, we could just do it, right?

So why don’t we? How come we hold ourselves back from next-level changes that could make a big difference in our lives? Why is it always so hard to take the first step?

Council members, the thing with humans is that they’re usually OK making small changes to improve their lives, like flossing not just when there’s popcorn stuck in there, or taking out the garbage instead of being like “nah, brah, someone else will do it, I’ll just say I didn’t notice it was full if anyone asks, because some of it’s my garbage but also some of it’s not my garbage, so it’s only partially my garbage which basically means it’s not even my garbage at all.” When cavities/living in one’s own filth become unpleasant enough for a human, they finally learn that doing the smart, small, right-now thing is actually easier in the long run.

But sometimes there are things even more serious than timely kernel/garbage removal that we need to change about ourselves; deeper, more ingrained stuff that has overarching consequences and regarding which, for whatever reason, we’re too scared to put change into motion.

When you persistently hear a tiny voice in your soulparts telling you something needs to change, you should probably at least think about listening to it. I call these gentle prompts “Inner Soul Whispers” because that’s what well-known human Theresa Caputo AKA the Long Island Medium AKA possible expert on human soulparts (?) would want me to call them.

The longer you’ve been stubbornly ignoring your Inner Soul Whispers, the more scared you probably are to do whatever thing it is they’re whispering about. So now there’s all this gravity attached to the Thing, which I demonstrate here by capitalizing it. We’re like, “Yep, I should do the Thing, the Thing is important” and then we’re like “Nope, can’t do the Thing, the Thing is hard.” So we take out the garbage instead of doing the Thing and congratulate ourselves on how proactive we’re being.

But Inner Soul Whispers do not just go away because you ignore them; instead they plague you forever.

When you’re like, “I just want to keep on livin life the way I’ve always lived it, thanks,” your ISWs are like, “Yea but how much money could you save if you quit smoking? What could you achieve if you didn’t procrastinate? How would your life change if you finally signed up for those classes? What brain cells will you never again have access to thanks to your weekend recreational choices?” And you’re like, “Shut up, Inner Soul Whispers, don’t tell me how to live my life” and they’re like “OK suit yourself” and you’re like “Thanks I will” and they’re like “Great, we’ll revisit this at 3 am.”

And indeed you hear them, late at night or during daily moments of idle brain activity, trying to get your attention from deep down in the bottom of the deepest part of your deep, deep heart.

That voice knows the way, and yet we ignore it, because spoiler: we are fucking terrified of failing when we go after something we truly want. Probably because we think if things don’t work out, then that’s that, our dream is dead. So we put off doing the Thing, because the further out on the horizon, we tell ourselves, the more time we have to prepare and get it right. Except that time runs out, and someday you’ll be dead without ever even trying any of your Things. And then Theresa Caputo channels you and has to tell your family you’re a restless poltergeist because you never took any chances in life, spoiler: your family is sad forever because you keep breaking all their dishes from beyond the grave.

In order to avoid this as a human, you must pick one of your Things, and then do that Thing. Just do the Thing! Even if it’s scary and uncomfortable, do the Thing! Don’t think too much about the Thing, just do the Thing! That Person would do the Thing, so if you wanna be That Person you must also do the Thing! And if you “fail” at the Thing, just keep on trying to do the Thing until you do the Thing!

This is true bravery, Council Members. Relentless, stubborn, hopeful, human bravery. This is the kind of important stuff they’re here for. I think. I don’t really know. But if TC were here right now she’d be like, “I’m getting a feeling from Spirit,” and then she’d be like, “Spirit wants me to tell you guys that L is a genius who is doing excellent research and deserves a vacation.”

Just throwin it out there, guys.

Until next time, PEACE AND PROSPERITY UNTO YOU! IN THE NAME OF RESEARCH I SALUTE YOU!