Build Something New

"Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out." ~author Unknown

Kindness doesn't always have to be "kind" in order to create good things. In fact, one of the worst acts of unkindness that ever happened to me helped to create some magnificent results. One of my great aunts was angry about some thing or another and I happened to be handy when she looked down on me with a laser focus and let these words fly, "You are nothing. You came from nothing, and your parents have never done a thing worth mentioning. You'll always be nothing." I was seven.

For many years, I kept those malicious words tucked close, allowing them to drive me in all of my accomplishments in an attempt to prove her wrong. Then, one day, I didn't need them anymore, as I finally came to the realization that only "I" was responsible for defining who I am and what I become. No one else has that power, nor should they. Every sucuess and failure I have is on me, and the only way I truly "fail" is if I give up! That is not to say abandoning one path in favor of another is giving up...like when I was determined to become a police officer (twice in my life), and both times further investigation of that path showed that doing so would not serve my "higher" purpose, so I abandoned it.

There is no excuse for being unkind to another human being, even if we understand why others do it, why WE do it, because at some point we've all been the giver and the recipient of unkind things. The true measure of who we are, in my opinion, is what we do about those things, especially when we learn how to turn them into something positive! The aunt who said those words to me long ago is dead and gone, but I'm very grateful that because of her, I got to learn all of the things I CAN be instead of dwelling on all of the things I'm not.