I have always been a sucker for books....particularly old books. Even when I was younger I loved to place them around my bedroom in stacks as a make shift night stand or side table. Summer reading was one of my favorite past times and I can still remember the smell of the Ojai Library where my mom used to take us every week to pick out a new title. As I grew older, I kept most of the books that I had growing up and my collection has grown. I can't seem to part with them because in truth, they represent parts of my past and my journey to adulthood. They have become part of me and have made me who I am today.
I was considering recently the books that remain in our house and their direct connection to my identity. It occurred to me that if you are keeping books or things around you that do not reveal who you are, then you are living for someone other than yourself. This is simple but true. Have you ever been invited into someone's home that seemed to reflect a different persona than who you knew that person to be?
We all have aspirational goals of who we want to be or what we want, but if our creativity or work does not come from a place of truly understanding who we are, then we are not being authentic and whatever we produce is not as powerful as it would be if we were truly connected to who we were. We will produce a false representation of ourselves or of an idea we are trying to communicate. We will compare ourselves to others and their creativity, gifts and abilities and wonder why ours our not the same. I firmly believe that if we truly knew the beauty and uniqueness that existed in ourselves and believed in communicating that to the world.. we could change anything. The world is big enough for every gift and every talent to have a voice.
Run your own race.. be your own person... discover the gifts and abilities you possess. “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” St Catherine of Siena
