For those of you who know me, you know I’m a Kendrick Lamar super-fan. According to music streaming services, I’ve been in the top 1% of Kendrick listeners for years now.
However, I don’t binge listen to Kendrick because he is the greatest rapper of our generation (even though, in my view, he is). I don’t even listen to him because I love his beats (even though I do). I listen to his music for the same reason I go to therapy, run on trails, and sit to meditate. I listen because his music opens my mind to what being human really means.
Take Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, the double album Kendrick released in 2022. I loved it immediately. But I didn’t understand it. When I first arrived at the last track (Mirror) and heard Kodak Black proclaim, “I choose Me,” I was a bit perplexed by this.
But as a storyteller myself, I already understood how Kendrick builds stories throughout his albums. Usually, the protagonist (whether it is K-dot, Kung Fu Kenny, or Kendrick Lamar) battles his demons, only to learn some deep truth about the human condition. He then ends each album with the last track being a victory lap of realization. So, there must be more to this statement, “I choose Me” than meets the eye.
Thankfully, Cole Cuchna (creator of the podcast, Dissect) was able to open my eyes to the selflessness and generosity embedded in this statement. Listening to his track-by-track dissection of Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers was hands down one of the most transformational experiences of my life. I highly recommend you listen to this rather than just consume my takeaways in this post. This post is like looking at a picture of a fancy steak dinner… Cole’s podcast is actually eating the steak (or tofu if that’s your thing). Start with Episode 1 of Cole’s dissection of this album below:
If you don’t like rap music, or have some other arbitrary reason to not like Kendrick… why not re-evaluate your preferences, suck it up, and listen anyway? We can’t choose where wisdom comes from in our life. All we can do is open ourselves up and receive it.
Anyway, here’s my main learning from this album. There are two paths we can take in life. We can choose “me” (small “m”) or we can choose “Me” (big “M”).
We are constantly surrounded by delusional people that choose me. There are so many miserable millionaires, bombastic billionaires, petty politicians, and isolated influencers thrown in front of our faces every day as examples of American “success.” The irony is that no matter how clearly we see their pain and misery as they struggle to feed their insatiable “me” with more money, more power, more things, more stuff, and more recognition, we still want what they have.
But the closer we pay attention, the more it’s obvious it becomes that there is no end to satisfying “me,” and so billionaires, who have enough money for 50 lifetimes, strive to get more money, while influencers with a sea of followers, scratch and claw for more followers to validate their status.
Observe these people.
They are our teachers.
And then observe these behaviors in yourself. Feel how it feels to really want this stuff. How does it feel to choose me over and over again?
Then there are the Kendricks of the world who have decided to choose “Me.” As a spoiler alert on the meaning of this album (at least to Me), choosing capital-M Me is to choose to own your generational trauma, and then put in the hard work to vanquish it. Throughout Mr. Morale, Kendrick chooses to take ownership of his trauma (even though very little is his fault) and make choices in his life to transform it. He is choosing to end his suffering with him. To not pass it down to his kids. To alchemize trauma into love, and then set this love free to spread through the world on its own.
As a parent, I now see this as my purpose in life. I am not Black, so I’ll never understand the depths of Kendrick’s generational trauma growing up in such a prejudiced country. But I still understand generational trauma very well. My mom passed enough of it down to me, which she inherited from her parents, which I assume they inherited from theirs.
The problem is that most of us are quite fucked up when we have kids. We just haven’t had enough time to vanquish our own demons before we pop little ones out. And so, we do our best to raise them, but at least for me (in hindsight) we either directly or indirectly pass our trauma down to them through our unskillful words and actions.
This is not our fault though. And it’s not our parents’ fault either. Doing the work of choosing Me each and every day goes against everything Uncle Sam tells us to do. It goes against what this country tacitly expects of us, which is to be part of a machine that can print endless economic growth year after year. Endless economic growth only works when we all choose me, but falls apart when we choose Me.
But what if we really direct our awareness to understand what it feels like to choose Me instead of me? What if we really look to others to see which one of those groups has truly found contentment in life (independent of externalities)? I think we can then start to wake up from the myth that “my life” is all about me.
In fact, when I start stripping away all the ephemeral stuff that my me desires, what is really left? Eric is still there. Me is still there. But this Me is selfless, kind, and usually content for no reason at all. This version of Me includes just about everything - people, plants, animals, trees, insects, and rocks… all of it. If I prioritize capital-M Me, I prioritize everyone and everything. This is why I see Kendrick’s proclamation as immensely so wise and generous.
So my intent each day is to think about Kendrick and his decision to choose Me. Can I find the strength to choose Me today rather than me? Can I find the strength to own my inherited trauma and make skillful choices to transform it? Can I then find the courage to spread the positive energy that comes from Me with my wife, kids, community, blog readers, and ultimately, my entire world?
Can you see the wisdom here? Can you see what Kendrick is teaching us? What if we all traveled down the path of Me rather than me? The world would be completely transformed.
Each of us has the power to change the world. But it starts with changing me into Me. It starts with looking in the mirror.
So, who will you choose today… me or Me? What kind of example will you set for your kids? Your coworkers? Strangers? Anyone who crosses your path?
Ultimately, in the chorus of Mirror, Kendrick says, “I choose Me, I’m sorry.” He’s being too nice… probably because he understands that most folks jamming out to his music won’t understand his intention with these words.
But I understand, and now you do too.
So today I’m going to choose Me… and guess what? I’m NOT sorry.