I sometimes disappoint myself. I guess we all do sometimes, but I don’t know what it’s like to be inside your secret thoughts. I can’t see the dark lust you might have hidden in your heart.
But I know the dark longings that come from my ego — and I often have to remind myself who I am. And what my values are.
I crave attention. I lust for success. I want money and adulation from others. Despite the insecure parts of me which question my value, my ego secretly whispers that I deserve all these things. Deep down, I believe I’m great.
In such moments of weakness, I have to remind myself what matters.
Let me tell you about an artist who I admire greatly. There’s an excellent chance you’ve never heard of Steve Taylor. He was a brilliant rock musician in the 1980s and early ’90s whose music was aimed at the Christian market. He rocked hard. His lyrics were razor-sharp and witty. He mocked sacred cows inside the church and in modern culture, too.
Only a small group of weirdos in the church understood what he was doing. Most people were scandalized by him or simply didn’t understand what it was all about. I loved his work.

Life has a brutal habit of forcing us to confront our own hypocrisy
Of all the world’s contradictions, our own actions confuse us most
Leave your dead past behind; that’s not where you’re going
Buffet’s hypocrisy: His company owes IRS $1 billion in back taxes
Police won’t do their job, but they’ll ticket you for doing it for them
Vulnerability is scary, but failure to be open guarantees loss of love
Our inexplicable behavior ‘signals’ to the world who and what we are
Will Honduras establish the first modern free city? It’s possible
We never get enough of whatever lets us feel safe being ourselves