Who is immoral?
Who is intelligent?
Who is hardworking?
Who is superior?
Who is disrespectful?
Who is expendable?
Who is lazy?
Who is attractive?
Who is a criminal?
Who is a killer?
Who is poor?
Who is overweight?
Who is inferior?
Who is kind?
Who is stupid?
Who is disabled?
Who deserves your judgement?
You’re not the mistake you made.
You’re not the failure of your most recent project.
You’re not the loss of your job.
You’re not that indulgence you should have resisted.
You’re not the disappointment at not having come first.
You’re not that missed deadline or average result.
You’re not your success, your fame, your glowing reputation, either.
You’re not the letters after your name, your job title, your exam results, your qualifications, your place in the organisational hierarchy.
You’re not your bank balance, your debt, your smart suit, that designer frock, your car, your house.
You’re not your ability, or your disability.
You’re not your weight, your muscles, your illness, that blemish.
You’re not your happiness, your sadness, your rage, your shame, your dream.
How could you be any of these, given that any of them are liable to change at any time?
Any of them.
These things are all a blink in the timeline of your life.
It’s a huge misunderstanding of what humans being are, and one that your inner critic can go wild upon. That voice can be demanding that you fix, or change, or hide, or be ashamed of these things. Or that you hold on ever so tight to what you’ve got, for fear of losing it, and what it represents.
You are not your circumstance.
Perhaps there is a new kind of freedom you can find from knowing this? A new kind of acceptance of the transience of the world, and a new recognition of your own strength and constancy, a new discovery of your essence, your soul… a new kind of hope.
image by: GranitKrasniqi – deviantart.com
We were browsing a farm shop the other weekend.
I stumbled upon this crockery. I confess to quite liking it. Its quirkiness. Its imperfection. Its originality. Off-set bowls, bendy plates…
Strange how ‘wonky’ is on trend again. For years our supermarkets have discarded imperfect fruit and vegetables so that we only get straight carrots, nicely shaped ‘nodule-free’ potatoes, uniform apples. Now, suddenly, it’s OK to have twin parsnips joined at the hip or a slightly more bent cucumber.
Wonky crockery. Wonky fruit and vegetables.
I wonder if we can begin to embrace wonky people?
Wonky because they look different? Wonky because they believe different things? Wonky because they have disabilities? Wonky because they have abilities we (society) forget to value? Wonky because they don’t conform to the cookie cutter of acceptability?
illuminated dandelion 