When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
Audre Lorde
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Outside my window is a very tall pine tree. It’s full of new growth, thin spindly long branches that grow up and out. Fat little birds will perch on the very end of these branches, relaxed as the skinny branch curves and bows under their weight into an upside down C. How do they understand the pliability of the branch? How do they hang onto the branch (without getting a cramp) and maintain their balance? How do they know how far to go without it snapping? They sit there, playing chicken with the topmost branch and I wonder how it doesn’t spa-roing! back and catapult them through the air. Those little birds know if they lose their footing they can simply flap, flap, flap to another branch and start the whole branch bending experiment (my point of view) over again.
Even a fat, little bird understands there’s a Plan B. But more importantly, those birds understand that branches were made to bend under them, just as they were made to hang on.
I stare at this tree often and watch these birds push the laws of physics on the skinniest ends of the branches. I long to see one of them push it a bit too far only to get whipped back in the other direction, flying against its will.
Never happens.
But stop for a minute. What if all those things we perceive as dangers are the normally pliable parts of life that move around, sometimes feeling unstable, but are always solidly under our feet? What kind of chances would you take then?
Life can sometimes feel like a revolving door of missed opportunities. Perhaps it’s more of a course correction and our way of moving from one branch to another.
Or becoming a strong branch for another—maybe you’re someone’s safe spot to land.
There’s something to be said for believing that you’ll be alright, that if you lose your footing you can always rely on your wings to find a new stable spot in life.
By Jill MacGregor
My mom once told me “Don’t pray for patience because you’ll be shown how to be patient in ways you never wanted to imagine.”
I try to never assume. Sometimes saying a prayer fills me with the same feeling I get before I assemble a wall unit from IKEA. My instructions will be in pictures not words, with symbols I may not understand and 9 times out of 10—I’m going to have to get my drill out and make the hole on the other side of where it currently resides. I usually find out that I’ve done something upside down, post hole drilling, of course.
I have been known to misinterpret.
I unfortunately have come to think of God as a bit of a trickster (perhaps even Scandinavian…see: GØD), possibly a lawyer (sorry, lawyer friends), always looking for the loophole—Sometimes looking for the exquisite pain that could accompany the answer to a prayer because I left out something obvious and critical. From a very early age I felt if I did not specify every particular of my prayer that God might dupe me on a technicality.
It would have been my own fault for not having being specific.
Because of that, I have a tendency to make each prayer sound a bit like a deli order. Since I want my sandwich the way I want it and so there are no misunderstandings I have a tendency to list all the withs and withouts in extreme detail. It may sound something like this:
“Dear God. I would like to meet Mr. Right. And not the Mr. Right who starts out like Mr. Right only to turn into Mr. Wrong by the end of the movie. I would like to meet someone who loves me. I would like to meet a man who loves me.” And because I may be called later on being vague, I add,” And he’s not married. Or gay. Or dead. Or in prison.” And because I may only have myself to blame, I add, “I would like to love him back.”
And because sometimes God only gives me half an ear due to multi-tasking, I add: “And I would like him to be my height or taller because we’ve already tried the shorter thing and no one’s really happy. And no toupee. I can do bald. Bald’s ok, but no comb over. And I’d like him to have a job that makes as much as me or more because we know how weird it gets when he finds out I make more than he does. Not everyone is a carpenter. Ha. (awkward pause) It’s ok if he is a carpenter. As long as his hands are clean.”
I reflect. I wonder, if I were God, how could I screw me?
Countless times, I’ve made God the bad genie who just granted me three wishes only to catch me in my greediness and deliver the pure and unadulterated crap I accidentally wished for in my haste.
I pause and try to find some way that God might misrepresent my wishes, because I realize that if he only followed my instructions to the letter, everything would be perfect.
And I got to tell you…between you and I, God might be coasting on thin ice. Sure, I’ve experienced the joy of unanswered prayers. Somebody got busy and didn’t clear the list of to-do’s that day and it just happened to work out in my favor anyhow.
I’m sure I offered up a begrudging *thank you* in response…since the situation didn’t follow my specifications.
If only God would listen…
Poor God. Reading whatever he wishes into my prayers, right or wrong.
Poor God. Not understanding what needs to happen to make me happy. I’m here telling him, if only he’d pay attention. I am detailed for a reason.
Poor God. I don’t know what else I can do to help him. (tired smile)
Poor God. If only he were as smart as me.
By Jill MacGregor
You are driving me up the wall. I see right through your bravado—I think the only one you’re fooling is you. And the neediness. It makes me want to push you off like a slime. Everything’s a refusal with you, a no it won’t work, a that’s not important to me when, of course, it’s important to everyone.
Your fear. Your pretense. Your rules, your unnecessary rules. I just want you to embrace things willingly. I want you to stop making excuses and start doing things you’re afraid of.
Wow, can you smell the intolerance? So attractive.
If you want things to be different, perhaps the answer is to become different yourself.
Norman Vincent Peale
Just as we have those tender spots that we don’t want others to touch, some people in our lives seem to have those prickly, pointy characteristics that chafe us like bad corduroy on a cold winter day.
Why, why why —we can be so tolerant of near strangers and so intolerant people we know so well?
And those things they do. (shake with exasperation)
Let me take a moment to clarify. I encourage you to be intolerant to liars, rude bastards, cheats, bullies and others of the ilk. I’m talking about smaller imperfections that grow and build over time to annoy us.
Sometimes it’s hard to allow the people who make us crazy an opportunity to change. We freeze them in the moment when their actions irritated us and we keep them there like a prisoner…never seeing them grow, never seeing the changes they make in their lives, never allowing them to surprise us all because they are qualified as the annoying person.
Interesting how we are not qualified as the intolerant person.
If you spot it, you got it.
Anonymous
Oh, life. You do like to rub our noses in things until we finally catch the scent. These characteristics that drive us crazy, they are just a mirror that we are repeatedly forced to look into until we recognize the image looking back at us. That image is always us. It’s just so much easier to be annoyed by others since we are perfect. Or we don’t want to face some of the personal work we really have to do. Or we find it easier to not have to deal with the issue. Or we’ve acquired a taste for pointing our fingers at others.
But like a bad penny, the characteristics that annoy us in others are just going to keep showing up in our relationships and all of those we choose to have in our lives. These people and their annoying bag of tricks are here to teach us self acceptance. We will always learn more from those who irritate us most. They do seem to capture and hold our attention very effectively and illustrate the point so very succinctly, in a most visceral way.
So how do we love the us in them—without making a face, shooting them a side eye or verbally lashing out?
Find the meaning and own your piece of it. If everything’s a lesson look harder until you see yours. You might as well do it now…it’s not going to stop showing up uninvited to the party until you do. That characteristic that annoys you—which version of it do you perpetrate?
What’s your role? Are you the sharp pointy stick that prods the other person into certain roles and behaviors? Annoyance is a dance that is perfected by two people: each stepping on the other’s toes and pulling apart when they should be moving together in a rhythm. What do you need to correct so that others will stop responding to your actions in a way that you find annoying? Always need to get the last word? Got your tool box on the ready? Are you letting things build up by not using the old “I feel this way when you do that thing.”? Find a way to make some personal corrections.
Be a behaviorist on Mars. It’s annoying, they keep doing it, you don’t understand why. Find ways to praise the positive. Pull your head out of its court side seat in the this is why you bug me game and go take a seat in the nose bleed section. You need a different vantage point. Why does it really bother you? What lack in you is their behavior illustrating? This is the moment to look at the whole person instead of their particular behavior. Remember all the positive things you really appreciate about them? Those characteristics still exist—you just stopped looking.
Create some space. Less is more. Sometimes people get on your nerves because they are a flavor you can only appreciate in small bites.
Try to take the emotion out of it and respond more neutrally to the things that make you want to scream. Easier said than done, YES I KNOW, but just take a breath when you feel your blood pressure rise. That person didn’t wake up early this morning only so they could perfect their How to Annoy You List. They are not doing this to piss you off…that part just seems to happen naturally.
Give that person the patience you hope for when you transgress. Because, my friend, just as you can be annoyed, also can you annoy.
For more on this, you may want to take a look at My Little Fontanel .
A Valentine’s Day Story
By Jill MacGregor
I know a lot about your insides.
Going to high school in Austin, MN—the Home of Hormel—grants one particular access. Unless you too grew up in a meat packing town, I doubt you know what I’m talking about. Austin High School—home of the Packers: get it… because we were MEAT Packers…now go make cheerleader jokes…
Hormel. Spam. Got it?
When I was in high school I was fascinated by anatomy and physiology, thinking that one day I would be a doctor. Those dreams were dashed after what is known as the *unfortunate live frog incident*.
So what could this possibly have to do with Hormel, you may ask. One simple thing. PARTS. I’m talking about free parts—throw away parts, parts not even fit for the hot dogs. Hormel would generously provide our High School with buckets of free parts for dissection. (don’t think too long on that one…) Living in a meat packing town puts you on the fast track to getting free parts for anatomy classes. So, I’m taking some classes where we receive little formaldehyde soaked animals pumped full of red and blue latex and then other classes where we’d get giant buckets of pig eyeballs, straight from the pig. This was when I learned that our bodies are not as clean on the inside as they are on the outside.
One day, while clenching a live frog,(who knows where we got our frogs from…) my sharp probe pointed in the direction of its brain and spinal column, I suddenly understood this little frog was not going to be full of red and blue latex. The frog was also making a lot of eye contact. I sadly explained to my lab teacher that I just wasn’t able to kill the frog and handed him back. My lab teacher, who was always so sweet and gentle, took the frog and probe from me, told me he completely understood and gave that poor little frog the business inches from my face. “Pith and double pith”, he whispered as the probe scrambled Mr. Frog’s brain and then his spinal column.
He handed me back my limp frog, my mouth a frozen circle of “NO!”
The *unfortunate live frog incident*.
It was really interesting to dissect, though.
That was the moment I realized that I just might not be a doctor. It was very hard to see everything clearly with all of that blood obscuring my view. We are actually full of messy, messy blood. I suddenly longed for red and blue latex.
That didn’t stop me though from doing an independent anatomy project, which involved that same sweet lab instructor handing me a small, preserved shark wrapped in plastic, a set of scalpels and tools and reminding me to keep it refrigerated or it would go bad. My mom gave up her crisper drawer in the fridge and if I curved the shark just right I could get all 1 ½ feet of it in the drawer.
I confess, it’s not as easy to dissect alone. At the kitchen table. Every time I laid the shark on the table and prepared to dissect, I would expect it to twitch as my blade would touch its belly. Or I would replay my own version of Jaws: tiny Florida license plates spilling from its tiny shark stomach as I cut…
And its eyes. You know how they say (in Jaws) that a shark has dead eyes? Well, when it’s dead, it still has those same dead eyes making it look a little bit alive…for a shark. Alone at the kitchen table, these are the stories that would play in my head and although I outweighed my tiny shark by –well, geez, I think it only weighed 5 pounds—I always expected it to rear back on my hand and take a few fingers.
After a few months, my mom requested the crisper drawer be returned to a shark free zone and I hesitantly threw the man eater away. My lab instructor never asked about the shark. I imagine it was a gift with purchase he received by the Dead Things Full of Red and Blue Latex Company that supplied our high school with all of those fetal pigs.
Speaking of fetal pigs. The fetal pigs were the epitome of Comparative Anatomy II. You would spend the entire semester with your own tiny pig, meticulously identifying each internal organ and system. I was fascinated with my pig.
I was also fascinating with a boy whose name I can’t recall but in my mind he’s an amalgam of 3 boys. I had such a tremendous crush. Unrequited, of course. He was part of our group of friends so I always saw him and probably gushed a bit in his direction when I did.
I’m a proclamation kind of girl. I don’t mind taking a chance and making a statement. Valentine’s Day was just around the corner and I had an idea. I was going to tell him that I liked him. To his face. And I think I had come up with the perfect way to do it.
It was going to be very original.
Played and replayed in my head, suddenly Valentine’s Day was here and it was time to act. I saw him in the hall, in High School the location of all meaningful events.
“Hi Amalgam of Three Boys I Liked in High School (AOTBILIHS). I wanted to give you something very special for Valentine’s Day. I bet no one else will give you something like this.”
AOTBILIHS: looking wary yet strangely curious, “What is it?”
“It’s a surprise. Hold out your hand and close your eyes.”
AOTBILIHS: extremely apprehensive, “Close my eyes?”
“Just do it. I promise it’s not bad.”
AOTBILIHS complies, closing his eyes and reaching his open hand toward me, palm up.
I place my palm over his and close his fingers into a fist.
“I wanted to give you my heart. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
AOTBILIHS opens his eyes and his hand to discover he’s holding something he can’t identify. It looks like a piece of eraser. Eyes meet mine, questioning.
“It’s my heart.”
Not getting it.
“It s my fetal pig’s heart, actually.” But in a pinch it would have to do. We only got respiratory systems and eyeballs from Hormel.
And as he began to understand that I had removed a piece of dead pig and put its dead pig heart in his hand, his eyes grew wide and his hand, still gently cradling my heart, jerked up and hurled the pig’s heart somewhere behind him. Into the maddening throng of even more maddened teenagers, most hoping that cupid’s arrow would strike them that Valentine’s Day.
Only to be struck in the head by my fetal pig’s heart.
I am a believer in the power of words, the raw, knock you on your ass, change everything power of words. Some words change minds, some words change history.
“I have a dream…”
If loose and sloppy, words can do damage and destroy. I do believe that sticks and stones will break my bones –but words, words can sometimes cause an injury that is much more severe.
Some words are hard to say. They get stuck in our craw, if they even make it that far. They can be easier to say to some people than others.
You hurt me.
Forgive me.
I’m sorry.
I love you.
Those little words. They can change everything. They can make us feel vulnerable. They so concretely say the things our eyes are trying to express. As difficult to they can be to say…those words can also make all the difference. It’s the words that make us feel the most naked that often are the words that draw us closer to others—and them to us. All those words and actions that bare us have a purpose past making us feel awkward.
Why do we sometimes hesitate? It’s very easy to not want to open the can of worms, Pandora’s Box and create other cataclysmic moments. These little words can irreversibly change a situation, ringing a bell that cannot be unrung.
Maybe we all need to shake hands with feeling uncomfortable more often.
We all have the select group of people who have heard you say anything—and I mean anything. Things they may have wished we’d not said. Things that made you throw your arms around each other. Good, bad or difficult—it’s because these people fall under a different classification– the people who will love us no matter what. We’ve already had to be brave with them –we’ve tested limits.
I guess it’s the other classification of people I’m less sure about. There seem to be a group of people that regardless how long I’ve known them I only get to know them so far. It’s as if we never move from the shallow end of the pool.
I like the free feeling I get when my feet can’t touch—even if it has moments of fear attached.
By Jill MacGregor
When I walk outside, dinosaurs don’t chase me. I don’t see danger at every turn. My fight or flight response rarely if ever has good cause to kick in.
Except when I am saving everyone’s life in my head. I do it a lot.
You’re welcome. Just doing my job.
What could I possibly be talking about? It’s like this. In my head, on a very regular basis, I have smack down every home invader, scare the shit out of every mugger and protected myself and everyone I love from danger.
It’s sort of a volunteer position.
Until recently, I thought it was one of those things we all did—like talking to yourself or replaying the day’s events until they played more favorabley.
Is this wasted energy or preparation? Only time will tell because I do inadvertently store all my scenarios away. Not for review but for just in case. Card catalog of defensive maneuvers and crushing comebacks… complete with bat shit crazy facial expressions and gestures so every fictional attacker understands that I have nothing to lose, I’ve been waiting for trouble…for the myriad of dangerous situations in which I find myself…alright, ,in my head.
I am not a negative person. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I am an optimist which makes me feel like Pollyanna, bonnet tied under my chin, understanding that my fall from the tree will bring the town together.
But, honestly, we live in a world full of miracles. Children unburied in Haiti. Peace when everything points to potential chaos. Saying yes instead of saying no.
We created this phrase: near miss. It describes all the good things that rationally shouldn’t have happened but did.
Maybe that’s just our version of a miracle.
In fact, we’ve created an entire lexicon all so we don’t have to say miracles. I think it might embarrass us or feel too Old Testament…
Narrow escape. Incredulous. Unexpected. Lucky Duck. To be in awe of. And then, out of nowhere. When I least expected it.
All miracles.
Love. Friendship. Forgiveness. Cured (always past tense). Belief.
All of those positive things that happen in a way we can’t quite explain…miracles. Doesn’t always have to involve Olympic hockey or rising from the dead to be miraculous.
I could leave my crime fighting behind me. The world may not need me to take care of it after all.
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by Jill MacGregor
There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin
Tested.
Steeled.
Trial by fire.
Sometimes what feels really bad is really good for us. In a there’s no other way to get this information kind of way.
We’ve all had those moments, when we’re living our lives, minding our own business and things are going fine. Then, in what feels like out of the blue, everything changes, situations become difficult and you’re knee deep in something thorny, possibly tragic and definitely something new…not good new.
Suddenly, something is going to stop being easy. Something’s going to stop being comfortable. And sometimes, something that we thought was perfect and dear may be ending.
All these rough spots that life nudges us toward with sharp, pointy elbows, the moments of great change and sometimes great pain, coincidently happen to be pockets of intense personal growth of the *whether you want to or not* variety.
I have a tendency to whisper “thank you” under my breath, understanding that this situation I’m about to be shoved into is going to change me at the core whether I want to be changed or not. And while it changes me, it also prepares me to deal with other challenges. Thank you, I whisper, for change and all of its many guises.
Thank you, for the job that ended…because I am doing so many more interesting things with my time and mind. Things I wouldn’t have discovered and truly embraced otherwise.
Thank you for the relationships that have changed or ended even though at the moment it felt like a loss. They’ve allowed other relationships to rise to the surface and become even more important to me.
Thank you for distance that makes me miss some of the most important people in my life. It makes me never waste a moment with them.
Thank you for all of the times I only had a vague notion of what I wanted my life to be—all the times when I felt like I was just a big aggregate of dissimilar situations, unconnected events, a pile of strings. Those moments taught me patience (still learning) and gave me an eye to spot what’s valuable…not by the shine, but by the strength.
Although my first reaction to change may be pain, fear, sadness or discomfort, that is merely a response to a symptom of what I’m experiencing, not the end product of change. These symptoms are just the deep stretch to warm up my emotional muscles. And sometimes that initial stretch doesn’t feel very good at all. I think I’ve pulled something…
Thank you, I whisper, for all the times I thought I couldn’t. There’s nothing like being half way up the proverbial mountain and feeling like you have no strength to continue only to discover you have just enough in you for one more step–and one more step and one more step after that.
Thank goodness for that.
The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.
W.E.B. Du Bois
You may want to read Don’t Make Me *Lucky Bastard* You
Haiti.
Let’s get on it.
NOW.
Let’s make a difference and help. Here’s are some options and they are all easy.
From Your Cell:
Text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief efforts in Haiti OR
Text “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund (Yele.org)
Here are a list of other organizations who are helping with relief to Haiti that you can donate to.
Remember, you really are one lucky bastard. Now go do something for someone who isn’t.
If you are still sitting there, please read this.
Thanks.
by Jill MacGregor
I’m finding that I like to designate a new year *The Year of Fill InThe Blank* before I get too far into it. Sort of give it a theme, like a ride at Disneyland. It keeps me focused, as if someone’s posted a sign I can always glance up at in case I’ve forgotten what I need to be doing next.
This has been such an interesting last year and a very different year than I’ve had in a long time. I felt myself ramping during 2009. Making changes and having changes made all around me that put me in a unique position to (voraciously) need to know the inner workings of things around me in a new way. NEED TO KNOW like a starving person. I’m not sure why what brought this on. Therefore, 2009 was appointed The Year of Learning.
I felt this overwhelming need to be smarter in 2009.
Don’t get excited– I still round up on fractions (learned that from baking) and my high school friend, Anne, will make a very sad face while explaining my difficulties with Algebra…blah…
In 2009, I caught a sense of the speed the world was moving at, how it was picking up speed everyday and I didn’t find it scary. I found it thrilling. I understood in my bones that there was more I needed to know so that I could keep up with all this spinning.
Year of Learning.
So, what is this year supposed to be? It seems really important to label it…like the Chinese do. Some ideas:
Year of the Whisker
Year of Actually Reading a Book Instead of Listening to It
Year of Stop Growing Your Hair Out Already, Crystal Gayle
Year of the Cat Starring at Me Endlessly Like She’s About To Share An Uncomfortable Secret (like she’s really a very fat guinea pig—love her)
Lovely choices, and annoying accurate, but possibly not what I’m looking for.
When I think about what the focus of this year should be, I want to see myself at the end of it, on December 31st, breathing a contented sign and feeling like my life is so much better than when the year started. That was how it felt this Dec 31st and I liked it. Maybe this coming year should be:
The Year of Being Healthy
The Year of Working for the Man (I am getting the itch to 9 to 5 it)
The Year of Getting My Nerd On and Learning a Developer’s Language
The Year of Finishing That Book
The Year of Getting Published…or is that simply being self-published?
Honestly, The Year of Learning will continue, because once you start a practice like that it’s difficult to stop. The monster must be fed.
And if the only one holding me back is me—I guess the question is really how big can I make this year. How can I make enormity look small?
Oh my…I have to sit down.
Maybe this could be The Year of Risk.
Let me take a moment and step back. Sometimes when I ask myself big questions like this or when I lay my little head on the pillow, I find myself back in Hong Kong, for some strange reason. It’s not because I lived there for an extended period of time or even had a significant experience there. I did go there last year for business and pleasure and certainly enjoyed my trip…but didn’t feel a big urge to return to Hong Kong.
So why do very palpable memories come flooding back? I smell the streets, I feel the heat, I know what to expect around the corner where my mind’s eye has taken me…
Maybe it’s because I was a stranger there. I was foreign.
And I got lost a lot.
I really love those two things—being foreign and getting lost in a strange land. It turns you on your head and forces you outside your comfort zone. I am very comfortable outside of my comfort zone…well, maybe outside of someone’s comfort zone. It seems like there’s something about not understanding that makes you realize that you are on the verge of understanding something really big.
Perhaps I should call this The Year of Being on the Verge of Understanding Something Really Big.
That could do with some editing.
While I ponder my year, I’d love to hear what you think the focus of your year is going to be. Shout it out!
by Jill MacGregor
We all have hopes and dreams—goals we’re working towards—projects we’re passionate about. These things light our fire, fuel us and often times become a part of our identity.
I just want to check—when you think of yourself working on the projects you’re most passionate about, do you feel like you’re a champion? Are you giving yourself the credit you deserve for the progress you’ve made?
Do you give yourself room to win?
Because, I tell you, it has to start with you. You shoot the gun, you run the race and you call the finish. One day there’s going to be a jackass in front of you telling you that they don’t get it, they don’t like it, they don’t understand why you’re bothering or will offer you the flimsy most deficient of praises for your efforts.
(You’re picturing that person’s face, aren’t you? Yea, me too.)
Don’t let them win.
There is one person who can keep the fires burning and that person is you. It may feel exhausting sometimes but it’s good to know who’s in charge of making your dreams a reality (that’s you). No one is going to do it for you. Stop waiting for someone else to do the heavy lifting. Its all you, my friend. You are the director, the lead and the stage hand. If you assign any of these roles to other people, what are you going to end up with? (asked the control freak.)
People love you, people want to see you succeed but you are the only person so closely tied to the outcome of making your dreams come true. That will never be as important to others as it will be to you—no matter how much they love you.
No one’s going to make your dream happen for you.
So let’s play a little game with my theatre analogy and see how you’re progressing. In my mind, champions play all these roles.
You, as the director
You call the shots. A good director pushes because he sees the future performance; he knows what the end product needs to look like. A good director is always looking for a way to make it better. And you’re a good director because you can read the room; you understand what people need before they do. You might think this all sounds like clever manipulation but I call it close observation, attention to what is not said just as much as to what is said. Leading the action. Stating what you want until you get it. Being appreciative when you do get it or even something better than you’d expected.
Are you doing that? Who would possibly do that for you—and if anyone is, why are you letting them? This production is yours.
You, as the stage hand
So many details keep the machine running. So many people rely on you moving invisibly behind the stage. Everything has to be in its place and hit its own mark for the production to be believable and hold the audience’s attention. But every rehearsal has prepared you for this performance—as you’ve developed the muscle memory to multi-task you way through most anything. And become agile enough to make due when something isn’t exactly in place.
You are the glue that keeps everything together.
You, as the lead
Insecure, with a definite need for constant praise, you are at your best and shiniest, when you feel the pressure may crack you. You’re quite certain that this is the one time they are all going to finally discover that you are a big fake, a giant imposter and that all previous good fortune was happenstance. Just dumb luck. Right place, right time.
But then you’re on the stage and all that insecurity drops away because you are the presence. You breathe life into all you do. Do you know why? Because all your former roles have prepared you for this moment even if deep down in the clutch of your gut your scared and unsure if you can do it. But ego and desire drove you up on this stage, that and something you can’t quite name, something like passion but even bigger, so chest out. Chin up and find your light. You know you could never stop even if you wanted to.
You are what people came to see.
That may sound like a lot of work for one person but the production is you and no one’s going to care for it with the same level of dedication as you will.
YOU.
Sure, we all need help from time to time. But it’s the moments when we’ve given our power away, when we’ve started to coast—those are the moments when we realize our dream is becoming a speck in the distance because we are moving away from it.
What makes people champions? When the taxonomy is our own, the definitions are our own why would we allow others opinions to gauge if we’ve been successful?
You could say someone is a champion when they achieve their dreams. But there’s a whole lot that goes on until you reach that moment. So I say a champion is someone who doesn’t give up, doesn’t sit back and let someone drive and stays in the game even when it feels like their passion has become its own reward.
Champions rarely look neat and clean. They often look slightly bruised, bloody and battle worn with a big smile on their face, arms raised and yelling, “Yes!”.
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