Thinking BIG

We are meant to excel. We have potential that we are meant to discover and reach. We are supposed to find out who we are and be the best “us” that we can be. It was easier when I was a kid. It seemed anything I could dream up, almost fell into my lap. “Sometimes all you need to do to win, is try,” my Mom would tell me and I won writing contests, scholarship pageants, I made it through auditions, I was handed opportunities. I was never very confident, I was just a dreamer… and that was enough. (There is something to all that “visualizing” that you hear about.) Sometime around college, I realized how big the world is and how small I am. No matter how well I could write there would always be someone who wrote better. No matter how I wife, someone will wife better. No matter how I mother, someone will mother better. No matter how I serve in my church, someone could do the job better. And it’s been established that I can’t drive, so I already started at a disadvantage! I was getting smaller and smaller… and I’m only 5’1” without shoes on! As a young mother of 2, I was standing at the kitchen sink of my apartment. There was no window over the sink, so I had put up a page from a Thomas Kinkade calendar to lose myself in as I did dishes. I was trying to figure out who I am and what I should be doing with it. I’m a hopeless romantic, but I found my Prince Charming. I’m a grown up now. It’s almost silly how much I still thrill over a good love story…. But I still do. Is that something? I’ve always loved English. I’ve always loved writing. Is that something? That’s when I first realized that maybe I’m meant to pursue writing. Dolly Pardon said, “Figure out who you are and then do it on purpose.” I’m not saying that every time we figure out what we’re “meant to” pursue that we’ll have the ultimate success. After all, I watch America Idol every year and see hundreds who truly feel that they are “meant to” sing. There is only one person who wins. What I KNOW is that you can’t go wrong in getting yourself on a path to self-discovery and then self-improvement. I know good things will come. I believe that I’ll be very happy with where I end up if I find out who I am and then try to be my best self. My best self doesn’t leave room for thoughts of the people who write BETTER than I do. It doesn’t leave thoughts for the romantic who's even MORE hopeless than I am. No thoughts for those who won more contests, who started younger, who are more accomplished, who are braver, who are better connected. NO! I had an idea for a novel. Nobody else has had the same idea. I could tell one hundred other writers about my idea and tell them to write the book. I’d have 100 VERY different books. Nobody else can write my book like I can. It’s the same in any field. Nobody can do what you can do the way that YOU do it. It isn’t possible. That’s my simple description of how this world can be so big and we can each be BIG within it. Let’s try and be BIG. (And I don’t mean by eating peanut butter M&Ms.)