Who Are You?

Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.
~Dr. Seuss, born this day 1904

The above quote was waiting for me in my email this morning. It took me a while to stop crying after I'd read it. It was exactly what I needed to hear for so many reasons.

We love to boost our friends. We are cheerleaders in the lives of others, constantly rooting them on. We'll lend a hand or a shoulder as surely as the sun rises each morning. We love to watch them launch, soar, fly.

We don't give ourselves the same consideration. I can't remember the last time I looked in the mirror, smiled big and said, "Yay ME!" I can't remember the last time I told myself, "Don't cry. You're beautiful just the way you are."

I'm guessing there are others.

We are each a gift. We are each a gift, not just in the lives of others, but to ourselves. After all, when the world goes silent, when the lights are off, who are you going to have? Yourself.

And that, friends and neighbors, is why we owe it to ourselves to be the very best that we can be. We don't need to be skinny, or smart, or pretty, or inventive, or creative, or... anything for anyone but ourselves. Being who we need to be for ourselves might sound and even seem selfish, but it isn't. Because when we give that gift of greatness (yes, I said greatness) to ourselves, when we're open to being the epitome of what we were born for, it flows. It floods everything and everyone around us.

Really. Isn't that a whole lot easier than trying to be something for someone else? Trying to be something for someone else almost always fails. Trust me. I'm the poster child on that one.

Think of the emptiness that would have been left in the world had Theodore Geisel never accepted and championed his own role in this life. Every generation I know of has grown up with Dr. Seuss, and everyone I know from young to old can quote something from his impressive body of work.

The world would be empty without you. As it is, the world is at a loss without you being as you as you can be.

Step up, please? We need you. We need you to be yourself and to be a champion of yourself. Mostly we need you to be the you that you were born for.