Be Yourself -- There's No One Else Like You!

"There is in certain living souls
A quality of loneliness unspeakable,
So great it must be shared
As company is shared by lesser beings.
Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this
That in immensity
There is one lonelier than you."

Theodore Sturgeon , "A Saucer of Loneliness"

I resonated mightily to the above quote as a teenager. I memorized it and wrote it into one of my journals. I felt truly "alien" when set alongside the rest of my tribe and classmates. There was just something terribly lonely about being "different."

So I isolated to all intents and purposes. I was shy and afraid of revealing myself, knowing I was somehow "fatally flawed" by a creative urge that could not be put asunder. So I wrote instead – journals – trying to figure myself out, trying to find out what it was that wouldn’t let me be "normal" – wouldn’t let me be happy as a wife, mother, teacher, nurse, or any other 9-to-5 occupation or pastime…

No one else seemed to be having much trouble fitting into the roles that society and years of tradition had slated them to fit into. What was my problem?!

Sturgeon’s lines still haunt me. I remain "different" in numerous ways but have by now found others who believe it’s okay to be different. Lots of people even celebrate my surrender to being different because it gives them the encouragement they need to lay claim to their own.

In many cases I had to go outside my family, my tribe and my comfort level to locate those who vibrate to this frequency, but it has been worth all the trouble, all the wrong turns, all the mis-steps that it took to finally find a comfort level about "being different and being okay with it."

DISC Personality Insights provided the ammunition I needed to proclaim myself "Well within normal parameters" for an extremely high I,D,S personality. I no longer consider myself the result of some awful birth defect! It’s my nature (and a gift from God) to be the way I am when not shuttered or stunted by others’ opinions of how people "should" be. I’m well under the control of the Holy Spirit these days, so the I,D,S that I am is not detrimental, but contributory. I’m sure it was at least occasionally detrimental in the past, when I was a pre-Christian. Out-of-control I,D,S folks can be a severe pain in the patoot!

I wish it hadn’t taken me 54 years to figure all of this out. I hope it doesn’t take anyone else that long. But however long it takes, just know that you are not alone. Your passion to be whatever it is you want to be is a gift, as long as it has as its goal a desire to benefit others to the same degree, or to a superior degree, that it benefits you. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you anything different.

Your passion is divinely inspired. Go for it!

"Each one should use

whatever gift he has received

to serve others, faithfully administering

God's grace in its various forms."

1 Peter 4:10

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Please keep Aunt Tod (Evelyn Fremault) in your prayers. Bobbie and I went to visit her in the hospital last night for a few hours. She may be coming home today, but no guarantees yet.

Thanks!