“A lotus is beautiful as a lotus, she doesn’t have to become a rose in order to be beautiful,” Tich Naht Hahn.  I just wanted to share a brief reminder that the game of self-improvement is more about unbecoming what we thought we were and embracing who we are.  In order to grasp what makes sense and pick up who we are, we have to let go of what we knew before.  We’ve talked about this many times before, but I think Tich Naht Hahn’s message puts a different spin on it because it emphasizes the importance of being ourselves.  We are meant to shine as we are and in order for us to fully embrace and experience life, we need to be who we are—there is no other way.  If you’re a lotus, you must be a lotus.  The lotus is happy doing lotus things.  The same with a frog and a squirrel.  They both jump but they live in different environments.  The same is true for us.  It does no good to wish we were a rose if we are a lotus.  We fair far better loving and accepting ourselves as we are—that’s when the magic happens.

The beauty of being a unique, individual creature is that we can do things others can’t.  We see the world differently, we see different creative opportunities, we see other alternatives.  We are the only ones who will ever see the world as we see it.  That isn’t to say that we don’t have people who empathize with us or understand, but their experience is not the same.  It doesn’t do well to try and explain a frog experience to a squirrel.  A frog will never climb the tree.  We all have talents and abilities and we are all gifted—It’s what I spoke about in an older piece.  If you judge a fish by its ability to fly of course it will appear a failure. But when you look at it swimming and diving, it’s remarkable.  The way it adapts to its environment—we are all born to our environment no different than any other component of nature.  I’ve always found it fascinating that we have this understanding of all other natural things, but we hold ourselves to a different standard.  We are gifted with sentience, yes, but we need to apply it practically.  We are meant to be who we are.  We are all beautiful and unique as we are—let’s celebrate it.