Think of yourself as a baby, as you were when you were
nine months old. When you were small, your views of self
were not tainted by the false words and perceptions of others.
You were pure, whole, complete.
Then, you looked at everything, saw everything, and believed
in everything other than yourself.
You can’t believe in yourself when you don’t believe you
are worth spending your days passionately absorbed in joyful
work.
Survival, yes. We must all survive, but we are also entitled
to survive with personal dignity and with joy.
We can work and love our job. We can eat and love the
food. We can sleep and adore the person beside us. We can
dream and see ourselves where we will one day be, if only we
decide it is to be so.
It is the love of the work
that brings you pleasure,
not the moment the workday is over.
How, I ask you, do you suppose you can be an effective,
thriving individual if your esteem bank is empty? You can’t.
Your value feeds on itself, derives its pleasures and inspiration
From within, from your purpose, and from the joy you receive
by living that purpose.
A vast majority of the masses inhabiting Earth at this time
live like robots. They are on automatic pilot, numb to their
true joy.
Yet there are souls who thrive, who shine, who glow – rich
in self-esteem, wealthy in self-belief, prosperous in love, and
compassionately giving.
These are the people who inspire you.
Why aren’t you one of them? You will become one of them
the moment you decide to be the best you can be – because
you will have taken the step to honor your worth.
To sacrifice your core self for someone else’s benefit, to
throw away your life to satisfy another is the biggest crime.
When you do that, you steal from your very self.
And your age is not an excuse. If you believe the lie that it is
too late to start over, you will regret it later. No matter how old
you are, even if you are in your seventies or eighties, you are
not too old to begin taking personal responsibility and creating
positive change in your life.
Today is the day to begin, or tomorrow, to rise with the sun
and decide exactly who you are, who you wish to become, and
declare to yourself that you no longer choose to sacrifice your
being, and value for the benefit of another at the expense of
your very life.
When you do not take the initiative to be who you came
into this life to be, then each day you face misery. And, ultimately,
you will face illness because your system will be
toxic from self-hate and lack of joy. It will begin to shut
down because it will have nothing left to fight for.
Give yourself everything, every joy to fight for, and you
will find vitality and health, and you will glow once again
when you look in the mirror.
By choosing to pursue joy, you will accomplish far more
than you ever could by toiling away for endless hours in a
dead-end job, with personal decay as your weekly payment.
No other person is responsible for your life. When you
blame another, you do not validate your true self.
If you truly want a better life,
take your life into your own hands
and create it for your very own self.
What others have does not matter. What matters is who
you are. Once you decide who you are, you will become that
person eventually. One moment at a time, your life will be
renewed.
Take the initiative to dismantle every part of your life
that causes you misery. Leave behind each task, obligation,
job, person, or pattern you no longer want. Replace them
with the qualities and purpose you have always dreamed of.
Replace them, perhaps, with enjoying peaceful, quiet time
alone or spending more time with people you care about or
engaging in activities that bring you pleasure. Clean out the
clutter, doubt, and negativity in your mind, and eliminate
the false views so you can truly live again. You can do this
easily by seeking to find the gift in any seemingly negative
circumstance. Replace every complaint with a new creation.
Replace every quality you feel unhappy about with the
belief that you have within you the ability to be all you were
born to be.
Live. See. Do. Discover. Be you! Get to know who you really
are. This is your responsibility to yourself. All else follows.
For how can you be there for others when you disregard your
self? You can’t. You need yourself.
Without your self, how could you ever know the joy you
will experience as soon as you decide exactly where you are
going?
Begin now. You have a clean slate. The future is what you
cause it to be.
Create a brand-new you, and one day you will look back
and thank yourself for giving you the gift of you! You need
permission from only one person: yourself. It’s your time to
thrive. The next chapter will tell you exactly how to do it.
Excerpt re-printed with permission from the book Individual Power: Reclaiming Your Core, Your Truth and Your Life © Copyright 2001, 2003, 2013, 2019 by Barbara Rose, PhD All Rights Reserved. Published by The Rose Group (April, 2003) ISBN-10:09741457X.