first attempt to write more on my blog...

fresh ideas? I struggle with them.

have you ever heard the quote "nothing of me is original.  I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known"(chuck palahniuk)?  

well the second i heard that, i thought, "well this is lame".

...i am not original: my clothes, my sayings, my ideas, my choice of music.  none of it.

craaaap. i am nothing special.

but here's my insight: everything of me is original.  my voice, my smile, my laugh, my hair, my eyes, my body.
with an estimated 6,904,942,120 people on this planet, i am different than every single one of them. i have my own journey, my own destiny, my own tests, trials, triumphs.  you name it, it's mine.  i can be who i want, when i want.

and so, i am reminded of a quote from harry potter (when am i not reminded of something harry potter related?):

"not me, not hermione, YOU."

one of my favorite stories of all time is that of Louis Charles, the son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  Just after King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France were executed, the men running the French kingdom exposed, Louis Charles, to everything vulgar, wordly, and vile in hopes of persuading the people that he was lavish and wicked. For months they surrounded him with alchohol, gambling, prostitues, and tyranny and for months he denied everything they offerred. After relentless trying, the men finally decided to simply execute Louis Charles as well. On the way to the guillatine one of the men asked him why he would not accept any of the worldly pleasures they promised him, to which Louis Charles responded: "I could not, for I was born to be a king." 

we are each destined to greatness.  we are each born to become royalty.  

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

i am brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous, powerful.  i am meant to shine.

i am original.

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. " 

Ralph Waldo Emerson