I have diligently prepared for you day #3 of Resolution Week at the NDD. Enjoy.

Creating Self

A friend of mine here in Tulsa, Erin Patrick, has a favorite saying, ‘You don’t find yourself, you create yourself’.  There is a great truth in that. Finding yourself indicates you existed before, like finding a coin on the side of the road or a lost puppy.  It existed and then you found it. But the quote says that isn’t true about people. We don’t exist off somewhere in the future waiting to be found, we don’t exist at all until we decide who we want to be.  We might decide unconsciously, as a matter of fact a lot of evidence in the past decade points to a huge portion of our lives being decided by unconscious elements in our history and present day.  

Conscious and Deliberate

But there is still plenty we consciously decide and create. We decide to exercise or not. We decide to pursue needlepoint or painting or both. We decide to go to college or graduate school or not.  We decide to wear something sexy or something dowdy.  Those are all things we can, in large part, control.  The main deciding factor in whether we get good at one of those things, or finish a course of action, is our diligence, our perseverance. Do we keep at it until we are a master of it or do we become a light weight diletante? Do we keep going until we have graduated or do we quit?  Do we make excuses for not sticking with something?

The Life Self-Portrait

What you do, whether deliberate or unconscious, contributes to who you are to become.  Being deliberate about it allows for choices and more opportunities.  But what about becoming expert in things they don’t teach in school?   What about being deliberate about being a lover?  Can you be deliberate about practicing love? Yes, of course you can. And will become a great lover as a result? Yes you will.  Practice love in it’s practical forms; being thoughtful, sensitive, kind, joyful, grateful, empathetic, patient and honest, and you will become a loving person.  It’s not magic and it’s not a secret.  You simply create yourself by practicing who you want to be.

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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who is a lover, not a fighter.

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Question of the day

What is the latin word for ‘Diligence’?

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