Here I am slinging words again. Sorry, no witty banter today. Straight to the musings. And the software will tell me it’s too long for good readability. Well to hell with that, it’s my forum. Don’t like it, miss out on a gem.

Sometimes we all need a little encouragement. What kind of encouragement though? Honestly, the best kind, as a friend pointed out is encouraging each other to be ourselves. Actually, to quote her, “Encouraging someone to be entirely themselves is the loudest way to love them.” She’s right, and honestly, it’s the only encouragement that should be needed. You should check out her blog at… thewarriorlady.com I fully believe the further she goes with it, the brighter she will shine! There’s poetry and some blogging, I know the best is yet to come.

Over the years I’ve tried to help people, tried to show them better ways, tried to give them a hand up, tried to get them to be their best. It would wreck me investing time in them and them doing nothing, and I’d lose my sense of self over and over. As I know some left me behind because I wasn’t living to my potential.

Until recently, few have listened. I have a friend who became a teacher and once told me it was because I pushed him to be his best. Funny, since I was the biggest fraud of all, at the time, hiding my truest self away usually. I can see the best of what most people are capable of, but if they don’t want to fight for it, they continue to trudge along. Unhappy, trying to be someone else often enough in society today. Cowards, Steph(thewarriorlady) would rightly say, living in fear.

I’m now done with those people. Just like I’m done worrying about failure. If you won’t fight for yourself, why should I encourage you? Why should I expect you to encourage me? The other side of that is some that care about you, only want to protect you from pain and hardship. Life is full of pain and hardship. It’s also full of love and happiness.

To think you can have all the love and happiness but no pain and hardship… Sadly laughable. Unfortunately, some endure more pain than is fair. Maybe that just means when they find love and happiness it will be commensurate with the pain and hardship they’ve fought through. I believe that’s true, whether its self-inflicted pain, or pain inflicted on us.

The hard part is being willing to accept both the pain and the love as they come. Don’t take the easy path, take the hard path.

I haven’t known Steph long, but I’d say we have both been pretty good at encouraging each other to be entirely ourselves. For me, her encouragement to nudge me the last bit to start this blog, which was started by her liking my poetry and us talking about blogs.

What else am I going to be doing, finishing that book I started too long ago, putting the rawness back into it. Finally doing a photo calendar. If I can find enough pics, a photo story book of my travels during trucking and rare vacations. Write another book(s). Maybe write some songs, we’ll see how well I adapt one of her poems to a song before I get too excited. Doing a sprint triathlon. A 5k in a unicorn suit. Hoping to do some collaboration with her on some stuff, but we’ll see. Succeed or fail, I will keep being me!

Will you encourage others to be entirely themselves, or will you tell them to conform? Will you be entirely yourself, showing your strength even though some will view it as weakness? I will, but I’m done living in fear!

Have a lovely day and keep/start shining bright!