Real

"To find your true self, you must surrender to it, and the best way to do that is to surrender to another person." Deepak Chopra

Lately she has been talking a lot about finding a purpose in her life, although she is accomplished in several areas. She is one of the best people I know, and I feel very blessed to call her my friend. She asked me what my purpose was. I think it is to become more and more of who I am. I am here not so much to do, as to be. And as I become more and more of who I am, I will quite naturally affect others in a positive way. I think we often don't know our influence, or perhaps with false modesty, we underestimate it. We might focus on the big sacrifice that we make for a loved one, when it could be that the things that make even a bigger difference are seemingly inconsequential to us. A word, a silence, a smile, a nod, a touch. The attitudes that we carry around; the energy we bring into a room.

We are all here together, on this planet. It is a wonderful time to be alive, because through the amazing technology of 2013, we can be connected in some unprecedented, creative ways. In one of my Communications classes, our professor said that a fully actualized person is one who is capable of being interdependent. Not independent. We don't go through the process of self-discovery, of becoming more and more of who we are, so that we can be self-sufficient, needing no one. Not at all. We become real and then have the ability to depend on others, just as truly as they depend on us. It's not about perfection. It's about becoming real.

It got me thinking about the classic children's book "The Velveteen Rabbit (Or How Animals Become Real)" by Margery Williams. And that led me to the delightful photography of Mark Nixon. I hope you will have a few minutes to look at some of the wonderful stuffed toys and read their stories.

Susan