This will likely be the shortest blog post I have ever written. In fact, I’m pounding it out it while taking a break from working on a piece about what it’s like to be a long-winded word lover in a world of short phrases and elevator speeches. I digress.
I spent this weekend in bed trying to cut whatever bug I have short. I’m not a good patient and I have a hard time laying low. Thankfully, I had three books on hand that held me so well that I had no desire to move. These tomes are wildly different yet move me in strikingly similar ways and I am departing this weekend with three truths pulsing through me. I feel compelled to share them.
1 Every person on this planet has a very special “secret sauce” at the core of their being. This includes all that is special and unique and, in my opinion, “that of God” in her/him/them. This special secret sauce sometimes looks, “tastes,” and feels like “crazy,” bizarre, foreign, and “off.”
2 Many people are ostracized/rejected/misunderstood as a direct result of their secret sauce. Some of these people come to believe that this very gift in them is actually a fault. With no one to help them discover, understand, work with, and embrace what is unique about them, they face a world of difficulties. They also go through life feeling flawed. (I can’t relate to this at all and bet you can’t either…)
3 It is my responsibility to work diligently to see the unique specialness of others as a gift to the world. At the least I want to be able to honor and respect these traits. At best I want to work to understand and welcome them. I must also work to own, be compassionate toward, and live into my own special secret sauce in order to play the role I am meant to play in the world.
There is so much more I’d like to say. So much more that should be said. There are complexities here that we could explore for eternity. For now, however, I simply want to share these things that have been freshly seared into my heart and mind.
I’ve written many times before, “Be kind to everyone for theirs’ is a difficult journey.” May we all forge ahead into a new week being connoisseurs of complexity, stretching our selves to see value in all the sauces we encounter.
In case you’re curious what I read, I will include the titles here:
Bettyville by George Hodgman
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (Finally…people have been telling me to read this for years! They were right!)
Let’s Pretend this Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson