TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE!

Be your “self”

Many of us feel we live in a society that often wants to control us and make us think the same as everyone else, so that we “fit in”. Yet my spirit is unique, just as yours is unique. Here’s a fitting story by Leo Buscaglia called Educated Insolence:

The animals got together in the forest one day and decided to start a school. There was a rabbit, a bird, a squirrel, a fish, and an eel, and they formed a Board of Education. The rabbit insisted that running be in the curriculum. The bird insisted that flying be in the curriculum. The fish insisted that swimming be in the curriculum, and the squirrel insisted that perpendicular tree climbing be in the curriculum. They put all of these things together and wrote a Curriculum Guide.

Then they insisted that all of the animals take all of the subjects. Although the rabbit was getting A in running, perpendicular tree climbing was a real problem for him; he kept falling over backwards. Pretty soon he got to be brain damaged and he couldn’t run any more. He found that instead of making an A in running he was making a C, and of course he always made an F in perpendicular tree climbing.

The bird was really beautiful at flying, but when it came to burrowing in the ground, he couldn’t do so well. He kept breaking his beak and wings. Pretty soon he was making a C at flying as well as an F in burrowing, and he had a bad time with perpendicular tree climbing.

The moral of the story is that the person who was best of the class was a mentally retarded eel who did everything in a halfway fashion. But the educators were all happy because everybody was taking all of the subjects and it was called broad-based education.

I invite you to respect the fact that we are all so different—valuing freedom to think in our own minds and able to become a person with a unique talent of being a miracle of warrior love! What blesses one blesses all! Happiness is sure to come from such creativity. If anyone wants you to conform, just send him or her love and go on along your very own path of loving life.