Being a human and growing as a person is hard. But not growing is hard, too, and in some ways more difficult.
So we have a hard choice to make. Do we want to humble ourselves by working at something that seems impossible to change? Or would we rather remain stuck in our familiar but somehow comfortable, ways? That’s just who I am, love me or leave me. My dog loves me.
It’s always a choice. a) Take the scary steps to grow and change, fall, try again, take a tiny step forward, fall, get up again, and just keep going. Make yourself vulnerable to someone along the way, risking the chance that they might not have the foggiest idea of what you’re saying or showing them. Resolve to be okay with being maybe misunderstood. Let your walls crack a little bit so someone other than your dog might be able to peek inside there. Hope for the best.
Or b) Keep the walls intact, enjoy the status quo, remain self-contained, and stay comfortable, resting in the knowledge that you are true to yourself, by God. This is who I am and who I was meant to be. You can’t change who you are.
I bet you opt for choice a. Even if the changes you make seem tiny, possibly even infinitesimal, even to you, it’s worth the risk. Even if no one else notices or no one else knew you were struggling in the first place, it’s worth it. Even if your dog and your loved ones seem to be fine with having you stay as you are, you probably know there are ways in which you’d love to grow and be happier.
So what do you do? You start. You try new things–meditation or journaling or reading something helpful. Maybe you tell someone you trust that you’re working on something and you might need help with it. Whoa. There’s a step! You take a cold shower and you give yourself a big spoonful of love and you get ready to fall and then to get up. And you do it over and over again. It’s hard! But we might as well do it since we’re already here. What else have you got to do?
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Rumi
“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” ― Leo Tolstoy
“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” – Carrie Fisher
| If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here. Thanks for listening, Kay P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.” |