Let’s face it everyone has an opinion of what you should do, how you should act, what you should say, how you should wear your hair and the list goes on and on.
It can be exhausting because when you act on those many opinions you are not living an authentic life, You are not being your authentic self. You can only be YOU because everyone else is taken.
When you were created and God breathed life into you, He had a specific set of plans tailor made just for you.
I am reminded about a time after my high school graduation and having conversation with my mom;
I was fresh out of high school ready to take on the world and my mom said to me “Shelly you need to get a job (Yes it was in the mom voice) you know that one where she is not making a suggestion it was a command.
Well, I did the only thing a newly graduate could do. I purchased a newspaper and went right to the classified section and saw an Ad for a sales clerk position, immediately I contacted them for an interview.
Upon my arrival at the interview I was the last person in line for that position there were 12 ladies ahead of me all ready to take on the world just as I was.
After two and half hours I was called in. I had waited so long that I had more questions for the interviewer than he had for me (smile). He offered me the position right there and then I was a sales clerk in a video store.
As you are reading this you may wonder what’s a video store just let’s say before there was netflix, HBO, Hulu and all the other platforms available today for great movies, people went to a store and rented a video with a movie, took it home then put it in their VCR to watch it.
thought my mom was making sense.Six months into my employment, my mom asked me “So are you going to be a sales clerk all your life? why don’t you put in your application to be a teacher?” Well I I then enrolled in College of the Bahamas now University of The Bahamas and got approved for the Teacher’s grant. I hated every moment of it, yeah sure I did pass my classes but I was not a good teacher, I went into the classroom not fully prepared and at twenty-one years old I was embarrassed by my students.
I should have been embarrassed, there I was teaching, not prepared, pretending to be something I was not. After that experience although I was half way through my program I changed my major to banking and Spanish my mom was not a happy camper but I was.
As life went on I could say that I was always this brave but truth be told I still struggle with saying NO to the suggestion of others, because I cared more about what people thought rather than being true to who I truly am.
Today I am here to tell you that we need to be free from the good and bad opinions of others. We need to live the life that we were created to live not what someone else desires.
Now don’t get me wrong your fan base, your balcony people, the people who want the base for you let them speak into your life and forget the opinions of those who are not.
I am reminded about this quote by Zig Ziglar “Why be a wandering generality and when you can be a meaningful specific”
Today as you look at yourself, really look at yourself, see yourself designing your empowered life, see yourself living your life by design rather than by default, which is really a life designed by someone else.