Grow up and be you…

February 21, 2022

I saw this quote on-line somewhere and decided to save it – “It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” – E.E. Cummings

It seems to pair nicely with one that I saved from the Jack’s Winning Words blog – “The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.” (John Green)

Too many young people try to chameleon their way through life, emulating the look and life of their favorite rock or movie star or maybe just someone else at their school or in their circle of friends. Some fear being unpopular of they allow others to see them as they really are or maybe they just don’t think who they really are is very interesting. It takes a while for the young, or any of us, to discover and understand themselves. It may take even longer to accept that understanding and have the courage to be who we really are.

Another quote that I’ve had hanging around for quite some time seems appropriate to this post – “If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?”  Gloria Steinem

Obviously, the foot is who you really are and the shoe is who you have been trying to be (or to be like). You must have the courage to be who you really are and to learn to love being that person. I’ve posted here a few times on loving yourself, which means loving who you are. If you can’t love who you’ve become, work on becoming a better you, someone that you can love, not on trying to be like someone else.

So, stop being a chameleon, get real and summon up the courage to be who you really are. You’ll feel better about yourself and I think you’ll find that others feel better about you, too. Those “friends” who only liked the person that you were pretending to be weren’t really your friends at all. You will find new friends who are attracted to and like the person you really are, and they are your true friends.

Grow up and be you.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Start with you…

October 15, 2021

Most people do not wish to be unhappy all of the time, yet there are some who never seem to be happy or content. Perhaps it is not that they are angry or sad, just that they don’t seem to be happy and that unhappiness sometimes manifests itself in their interactions with others – they are just not pleasant people to be around. Maybe you ae one of those people. It usually starts with not loving or being comfortable with yourself.

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.” – Lucille Ball

I’ve posted here a few times on this topic, but when I saw that Lucille Ball quote recently it inspired me to write about it again. Insecurity about yourself or perhaps self-loathing puts one into a defensive frame of mind that discourages reaching out to others. There is a downward spital that starts with the belief that nobody likes me and progresses through the thought – I don’t even like me. It is a destructive, self-imposed loneliness which can lead to depression and worse.

The advice that Lucille Ball gave in her quote is a key step to break out of that mental state of self-hate, but there is a precursor to that step – accepting God’s love for you. Take a moment to think about and accept God’s unconditional love for you. It’s a love so strong that he gave his only son to die on the cross to save you. You cannot hide from God’s love. You cannot refuse God’s love. You don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love. You just need to accept it.

Once you accept that God loves you unconditionally, you can move on to the thought that, “If God can love me, I can love myself and who I am.” Then, as Lucille Ball said, “everything else falls into line.”

There is a sign in front of a church in Milford that reads, “Make God Smile, Accept his Forgiveness.” The sign could have said “accept his love” and made the same sense. God’s love for us was shown in his forgiving our sins through Christ on the cross and promising us everlasting life. So maybe the title for this post should have been “Start with God…” and then you can take of you. Everything else will fall in line.

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Posted by Norm Werner