What makes me me?

One of my blogging buddies had this at the headline of her last post and then talked about what makes her her, and at the end posed the question, "what makes me me?" So I've been thinking about it, and its a weird question for me, I guess its too broad, and I can't pin down one answer. I would be willing to bet, however, that most people don't "have themselves figured out." I think as human beings we get really good at putting on a front of self confidence (which is a good thing) but inside everyone has their setbacks and insecurities, obviously, which is why we're here, to become better.

I've always known I was blessed with musical ability, but I still was always envious of talents other people had. Sports never came easy to me, which was frustrating because I come from a family of pretty good athletes (5 brothers) so a lot of people probably expected it from me. School (especially math) never came easy for me. I learned a great lesson my senior year of high school though, when I tried out for our high school drill team. My WHOLE life I wanted to be a "dancer." Growing up, I was as girly as they come, and I wanted to do all those girl things, so I left my "comfort zone" and tried out and made it as an alternate. Lesson learned: you can do ANYTHING you want in life, so long as you are willing to work really, REALLY hard. Being able to dance in my high school drill team was SO worth it though. I've always liked performing, and dancing for football/basketball games and state competition did not disappoint. ANYWAY, I love hearing other people's experiences in learning new things that didn't "come easy." I love the stories of NBA players who didn't make the high school basketball team (Michael Jordan) but didn't let it stop them. Those that are "born with it" often times sell themselves short because they know how good they are, and they don't make a lot of effort.

Its a good thing that everyone isn't good at everything though, because how else would we learn to work, and experience feelings of such great satisfaction. When I went to BYU-Idaho, I learned for the first time how to work hard in school. In high school, I just "jumped through hoops" usually not putting that much effort forth. For some reason, as soon as I got to college I decided I wanted to do good in school. Don't get me wrong, I didn't graduage with honors, but I never worked so hard at something in my life, nor had I ever felt so satisfied or proud of myself, so its good that we have to work at some things, because thats how we grow the most.

I do know this though: Heavenly Father made each of us unique with special blessings that are meant to help others. I could ramble on forEVER about this, but its always been so obvious to me that we each have special "jobs" to carry out on this earth that NOONE can do as good as anyone else can. I know this woman that is probably the friendliest, most genuine person I've ever known, and I think Heavenly Father thought, "I'm going to send this person to earth to make others feel good about themselves (among milliions of other good things she's accomplished)".

When I was 11 or 12, I had an awesome primary teacher, truly sent from God. She came into my life when I was having serious family issues and needed some extra attention/love/care. She would give me hand me down clothes from her daughters and invite me over to make molasses sugar cookies. She took me to this super cute old fashioned restaraunt for my 12th bday, even though she was busy with her 4 kids of her own. She gave me a card once and on the inside, wrote: "God really knew what he was doing when he created you." People like her, that have a knack for making people feel good, used her gift to help me. I'm confident that she was given her talents to bless others lives, mine being a perfect example.

“I’ve finally stopped running away from myself, who else is there better to be?” -Goldie Hawn