Who are you trying to impress?

Who are you trying to be?  Who are you trying to impress?  Who’s approval are you trying to get?

When we focus effort on the things we can not control (for instance, other people’s approval of us), then we may as well rail against the weather and wish, hope, pray and do the weather dance for sunny 25 degree weather.  Every day.  Everyone knows we can’t control the weather, so why do we think we can control others?

I spent much wasted time wishing others would approve of me and my efforts.  In the end, it distilled down to the simple idea that I just wanted to be accepted and loved.  In order to accomplish this feat, I used to do things that I thought others wanted me to do.  But at the end, I could never BE whoever any of them wanted me to be.  Afterall, how can you be so many things to so many different people?  Or, how do you decide who you should be today?  While focused on others, it felt like I had failed in getting approval, acceptance, and love, and that is such a horribly tragic feeling to have.

Yet, the answer was so simple.  I stopped thinking about what I thought others wanted me to do.  I stopped thinking that I couldn’t do certain things because of what others thought.  I stopped living someone else’s life and began living mine.  I became more true to me and learned to love the skin I’m in.  I learned how to accept and love me, for all my strengths and weaknesses, just the way I was.  Magically, I found others who also accepted, approved and loved me too.

Do you love yourself?  Are you being true to yourself?  Or are you still trying to change the weather?

- Daisy