Friday, January 11, 2008

Be Yourself

"About all you can do in life is be who you are." -- Rita Mae Brown
Read this quote today and it got me to thinking about the people in my life...friends, family, co-workers. How so many of them know exactly who they are and what they want in life. Sometimes I feel that way, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I know exactly who I am, what my goals are, where I hope to be some day, and so on. And other days, like this week, I think and wonder....am I living life to the fullest? With so many people dying of cancer (found out another co-worker age 40 passed away last week) that you realize nothing in life can be taken for granted. Get's me to thinking...if I were ever diagnosed with the "6 months to live" scenario...what would I do? Would I regret not following through on certain dreams or taking certain risks? Would I quit my job and do everything I possibly could?
I do know this....I know that I have to make a conscious decision not to get in a rut, to do and learn new things. To keep challenging myself, do those things that I make excuses for, if I had more money, if I had more time, if, if, if...as my Grade 5 teacher, Mr. Paddle (RIP) used to say "IF is in the Middle of Life"
I never forgot him saying that. And that's how I choose to remember him.
And that leads to another thought (I'm just full of them today) how would you like to be remembered? As someone great? Someone famous? Someone who made a difference? I think figuring out HOW you want to be remembered is a really good place to start to figure out what you want in life....it's how we choose to live now that determines at the end of the day, when we look back, if we're satisfied. I'd like to hope I will be. In the meantime, I'll be "myself" can't go wrong doing that. Can't regret being who you are...the only regrets in life are the risks not taken.

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