What You Are Made Of

What makes us the kind of person that we are today? It is a number of things! Who we are is a combination of our past, present and future thoughts and actions. Let’s look at it more closely.

Your past-regardless if you had a great childhood with only minor struggles or if you had a hard life, it molded you into the kind of person that you are today. By molding I mean it taught you compassion, love, understanding and taught you the value of everything. At a young age you can see what you have that others might not have or vice versa.

Your present-the current path you’re on. Today, at this present moment you could be on your path for an exciting career, a new life or whatever is going on. The important thing to know is that if you want to change anything about your life, you have this moment to do so. It doesn’t matter if you want to change careers, start volunteering, exercising, or start a new hobby; you have this moment to start. There is always a starting point in everything.

Your future-a dream in the making. We’ve all heard the term, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Well for some people that is a long time away, for others it’s not so far off. With each new experience that you’ve had, with every single person that you know, they have helped create you. People share their points of views and their interests some you will agree with and some you won’t, what this is doing is allowing you to state your point of view with a much stronger conviction.

The important things to remember are:

1. Never forget where you came from-this humbles you. If you have overcome something, share your experiences with others so they might find hope.
2. The world is a much bigger place than you ever imagined and the opportunities are endless. Maybe not at the current place you are, but the span of this earth is huge!
3. Global awareness-As we grow our world becomes bigger, and with this comes our awareness of our cause and effect on the world. Life is no longer about our immediate neighborhood, city or state or country, what we do has an effect on people, plants and animals all over the world.

Who are you? You are somebody that deserves love and respect. You are someone that is so unique. Only you can see things from your distinctive point of view. You are a combination of the old and the new. You are a combination of the good, bad and the ugly side of life, all rolled into one. You are made up of smiles and tears; hopes and fears and all things in between. Experiencing new life, and death changes us; some for the better and some not.

If you think that you are “better” than someone else due to success, money, status, etc., let me say it this way, you might have grown, but you have grown past yourself. When you get to this point; you start growing backwards, and that is not a good thing. What happens in this process is that people become expendable to you. They are not as important and you don’t feel you need them. You start to feel like people are beneath you and not only do you think it, you act it and you harm others with your words and actions. At this time, you have lost your compassion for others. I treat a person the same regardless if they are a bum off the street or the owner of a large company. You never know what that bum on the street or the owner of the company has gone through or is going through. My favorite saying is John 8:7 (CEB), “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” It is so true and there would be a lot less rock throwing in the world if people read it and understood it. I am who I am and that is all that I ever want to be.