A New Mantra for Today’s World

I have written about mantras before! I use them with my daughter and found them to be helpful for me too! My newest is this…

BE YOURSELF. EVERYONE ELSE IS TAKEN.

“Living your best life” is something everyone is saying right now. But like most things, it seems to steer us toward competitive living where success is measured in money, toys and beautiful Facebook posts! So when I say “be yourself” I am not advocating you put on the “sunshine and roses” face just so your FB looks dynamite. I am advocating for an intentional action toward authenticity!

What does it mean to be AUTHENTIC?

This is what Dictionary.com says.

I absolutely love the fourth definition, “agreement with known facts or experience.” Each of us has a different experience within a set of facts. Facts around us don’t change, but our experience with them certainly do.

Fact checking has become a cultural phenomenon during our political climate and social unrest. People are throwing around lots of information without a lot of factual basis for their statements. So Fact Checkers are now necessary! I find myself using them, and am always going to “first” sources when reading an article on Facebook.

And yet, even Fact Checking is being manipulated for personal use and gain. Just the other day, a fact checker was “fact checked” and found to be lacking!

Have you Fact Checked yourself lately? Where have you been found lacking? What are you hiding or glossing over in an effort to present a different you? What are you ashamed of or feeling guilty about, afraid to reveal it to the world?

Have you Fact Checked yourself lately?

When I say “Be Yourself. Everyone Else is Taken!” I am urging you to note your experience of the facts around you! How do you feel? What are your fears? What fulfills you? What excites you? Do you have any goals? Where is your growing edge or greatest challenge to self-authenticity?

Take a moment to answer these questions. Capture who you are, write it on your heart and claim it to the world! Actually, claim it for yourself!!!! The world will get it when you do! This will help you identify the values that guide your actions which will impact all your daily decisions.

Here is what I’ve come up with (and of course I reserve the right to change these as my experience changes)!

• Family comes first!
• God’s grace and love covers ALL things and affects ALL things
• Earth is sacred and should be respected and conserved
• We are created to be in community, in relationships
• Education is the great equalizer
• Self-accountability and self-responsibility are a necessity for just living
• A growth mindset produces a healthy and resilient child (and adult too)
• Minority voices need to be invited to the main table and given their due
• Sexuality is like “left or right handedness” (It is God given and not a lifestyle choice)
• Where 2 or 3 are gather, Christ is present with, in and through us
• Travel builds empathy and understanding; travel widens a person’s worldview and openness to someone different than themselves (It’s about moving from tolerance to understanding and appreciation.)
• Be yourself, everyone else is taken
• Failure builds resilience and ingenuity
• Living life fully means taking risks!

BE YOURSELF. EVERYONE ELSE IS TAKEN.

P.S. In case I need to say this, because it goes without saying in my mind: Let someone else be themselves without the need to make them more like you. Respect! Respect! Respect!