Just As I Am... An Original!

In life, sometimes I often find myself wondering. "God, what really is my purpose"? I ask myself question along this line of reasoning and to be honest I've been doing it for so many years I can't even tell you when I began thinking about my Life Purpose. I have recently come to a ground breaking NEW conclusion! Ta da! It's OK for me to be a bit on the odd side! Wow... what a simplistic thought. From a strictly conception point of view you might be thinking. Um... why is this such a hard idea to grasp? The truth is for so many years of my life I've tried to please everyone around me from family members, to friends, to different men I have dated. One thing that's becoming crystal clear is that while I was trying so hard to be liked, I had lost my true self identity. I wanted to badly to be accepted by those around me including my peers and family that well I suppressed my thoughts, concepts, ideologies for the sake of those around me. I wanted to assimilate or blend in to badly that I abandoned everything from my true career aspirations and even life partners just for a glimpse of a chance to be accepted.

My prospective on some of the contributing factors to my lack of self confidence in the aspect of my personality stems from my early childhood development. For those of you who don't know, I was home-schooled until the 6th grade. Consequently, I NEVER had a BFF from the first grade. So my entire life up until this point I have often felt isolated and less than or shunned. I wanted acceptance so bad that at one time I cried and begged my parents to cut off all my hair when I was a child. At that time, I figured that since my hair was at the center of attention with my peer group the only way for me to be able to relate to them was to CUT all my hair off. You see, except for a select few including mostly family members it was more than an oddity for a young girl with my skin complexion to have such long, think, beautiful locks of hair. I wanted nothing more for years than to be bold or what I considered to be bald at that time. I wanted to have a "Just for me Relaxer".... It's quite funny thinking back on that now. Due to the grade and texture of my hair I've never needed a relaxer but having a relaxer was THE IN thing growing up! It was almost like a right of passage for young girls of color.

However, I'm now realizing that its perfectly fine for my hair, skin complexion, and body shape and other characteristics including deeper things like my thoughts to be different from the masses. Snowflakes at first glance may look all the same but by closer inspection one might be surprised to find just how much detail goes into a snowflake. I picked the snowflake analogy to highlight the concept that each of us has gifts, talents, and dreams that are specific to each of Us. It is these differences that give us the ability to make a difference in the world around us be it by community involvement, community service, youth or young adult mentor-ship or some other cause. In many cases we focus too much on our differences rather than joining forces for the common good. However, when it comes to who you are as a person, I say you should EMBRACE your differences and cultivate all your God given talents, abilities, and gifts! I'm learning to accept the fact that God actually created me for a specific purpose and took time to make me Just As I Am...