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Imagine you are a leaf blowing in the wind. You take off from the tree and land on a well mowed lawn. You feel big, but you also feel not so colorful. The lawn is green, you are yellow/brown.
The wind takes you again, this time to the field next to the lawn. You land between some very overgrown patches of weeds and shrubs. You feel small, but you also feel pretty because you have a nice shape and are all of a sudden colorful, while the weeds are all bedraggled, shapeless and dull in color.
Once again you are blown away, this time landing on an asphalt parking lot. You feel even more colorful but also alone. Suddenly you feel worthless because a shopkeeper has come out and swept you up with other trash and tossed you onto the bulging garbage can around back. Why didn’t he see how pretty you are, maybe you aren’t pretty after all.
Finally you get blown away one more time, and you land under a tree similar to the one you came from. Surrounding you are hundreds of other leaves just like you. You are happy and feel safe.
In all of your journey what hasn’t changed? YOU haven’t changed. You are still the leaf with the same color, size, texture, pattern, origin.
That is how real life is. You truly are an individual out in the world. Sometimes the world is safe and complimentary, sometimes it is alien and cold. Some people don’t understand or like you and you may just have happened upon one of those people randomly. You might even marry one. One might be your boss.
Whoever they are, they aren’t defining you, they are either reacting to you or more likely they aren’t actually paying attention to you since they are thinking about themselves.
They might be a weed who doesn’t like your leafiness. That doesn’t mean you should change your leafiness, it means you should either ignore the weed, help the weed not be so fearful of others different than it or get in a place where the wind can move you on.
They might be a lawn of grass, obsessed with it’s own prettiness, and really don’t really notice you. You worrying about it’s judgment and wanting to be more green, but they aren’t judging you, they aren’t actually paying any attention to you at all. You can either demand attention from them, be satisfied to just be safe but unknown, or you can once again get in a place where the wind can move you on.
It’s not other people who define you, it’s YOU who defines you. Until you do that and know who you are you are at the mercy, not of the wind, but of where the wind places you.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Josh Billings, 1818-1885, American humorist and writer
