I don’t do “New Year’s Resolutions,” but I do choose inspiration for the year ahead. Sometimes I add to it throughout the year, sometimes not. I choose words that inspire me, words that make me feel more alive when I read them.
This morning I read this, and I thought, “Yes! That’s how I want to feel every day.”
“…to do and play my part in society and do my job to the best of my ability so that I can wake up in the morning and feel energized and go to bed fully knowing that I have done the best that I can.”
If you have followed my writing for any length of time, you know that I believe we are all unique and special. We are each a cog in the great wheel, without which the wheel wouldn’t turn as well as it could. When we try to live someone else’s life, we stop being who we are… who we were always meant to be. Consequently, the wheel suffers.
In a world that is constantly telling us how to be (how to look, how to speak, how to dress, what to wear, what to think, what to eat, and on and on), it takes an immense amount of courage and strength to be yourself. To be the cog you were always meant to be is the greatest gift you can give yourself and the world. I’ve learned that when someone tells you otherwise, it’s their own fear and insecurity being projected on to you. Nothing more and nothing less.
It took me a long time to realize, accept, and then take action on that truth – and I still stumble now and then – but it’s been a journey I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world… because I can’t. There’s no equivalent worthy of trade, because there’s only one me. Just as there’s only one you. Nobody can be me, and nobody can be you.
My wish for you for 2018 is that you celebrate every day as the unique special human being you are, by being the cog you were always meant to be.