Do you believe what society has taught you? Do you believe what society has taught you about the size of your hips, the color of your skin, the length of your legs, the texture of your hair, the smell of your neck?
Or do you believe that your body is fundamentally and unalterably beautiful; that your eyes, your hands, your feet, your nose, your knees, your knuckles, and your navel are absolutely miraculous?
Do you believe in age? Do you believe that life’s possibilities slip from grasp as the birthday candles increase in number?
Or do you believe in age? Do you believe that the accumulated wisdom of those passing birthdays brings new possibilities which were not available at your previously level of experience and understanding?
Do you believe that you are somehow living a lie; that your very existence is somehow an illusion to be perpetuated and that if they ever see behind the veil which you so artfully preserve, you will somehow be laid bare to the world’s disdain?
Or do you believe that the full, unsullied, undiluted, unadulterated, untainted nakedness of who you are contributes a necessary thread to the grand tapestry of humanity; that the very substance which infuses every beautiful corner of this wondrous existence is the same substance which infuses you? Are you finally able to sit in front of that proverbial mirror and join Stuart Smalley in those timeless words, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me?”
Do you believe in keeping your enemies closer? Do you believe the universe is against you?
Do you believe the other shoe will fall? Do you believe the grass is greener?
Do you really believe that the only things you can count on are death and taxes?
Do you believe life is a test - some sort of cosmic obstacle course set up by a precocious God in order for you to prove something?
Or finally, let’s get to the answer of the proverbial question: “do you believe your glass is half empty, or half full?”
Now, I present you with the hard question, the daring question: what do you think in here? not because “what you think in here” would render you immune to experiences of loss, hardship, betrayal and challenge.
I present you with the vulnerable question, the obvious question: what do you think in here? because “what you think in here” would render you ample to experiences of loss, hardship, betrayal and challenge.
I ask, “what do you think in here?” not because “what you think in here” gives you power over people and circumstance, but because “what you think in here” gives you power over you.
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