Finding the Diamonds around us

I had an interesting experience yesterday, that I've probably actually had most of my life, and it has caused me to think and ponder about something that I feel has been a big stumbling block for me for a long time...

Since I can remember I've always wanted to be a well known writer. I've felt in my heart so many things that I want to bring to someone else’s eyes and share with them. I have spent literally hundreds of hours with paper and pencil and music, and now a keyboard and a word processing program, mastering my craft, and honing my skills as a poet/philosopher/lyricist. I remember in junior high sitting in a class as we analyzed "The Sounds of Silence" by Paul Simon and thinking to myself someday I want to have my work studied in schools and people touched by my writings as much as I was touched by the writings I came across.

Yesterday on Facebook, a very good friend of mine sent me a list of the 15 most influential writers in her life, and I am to turn around and do the same. It is a fun game, and helps me learn a lot about the folks that I love, and share with them a little more about me, and I'm glad to do such things, but I wasn't on her list, and though I kidded her about it, in a way, I was also hurt inside. My friend in no way intended anything by the list than to share with me what she loves, and she certainly didn’t intend a hit to my ego! The ego is all mine, and my responsibility to deal with, and work through!

But it is a common feeling I go through. One I have come to recognize for the ego that it is and perhaps that is a good thing to help me keep my feet on the ground.

As a fun thing for me, she had actually listed one author twice that we both love, so she said that I could step into the 10th spot where the second listing was, and that she did feel that I belonged there, and it made my heart sing!

And I feel like this is a selfish thing on my part... sometimes.

I do realize that most authors will never meet the folks whose lives they influence or touch, so they write for other reasons as well.

Yet I have often kept my dream in the back closet, hidden, because sometimes I think that others around me don't appreciate enough the hard work, the deep thoughts, the time taken to record so much, and most of it sits in my computer while I work on things with less meaning in my life so I can appear normal, or be what I think others think I am. But mostly, it is on hold because I need to make a living!

As I look around me, I find so many of us in the same situation. We have so many gifts inside of us that our daily living puts on hold so we can get by surviving life.

I also know I do very much the same thing… it wouldn’t have occurred to me if I had been her that I had even taken it the way I took it! And I know I have said things to others that were meant one way, but probably heard another way!

I think sometimes that I have spent too much time trying to fit into other people’s molds of me rather than truly letting the gifts I have shine out. And I wonder about how others have felt about the masks they may feel I am superimposing on them.

I remembered this morning something I read in the Bible once. Christ told his disciples that a prophet is not recognized in his own country.

Now I won't even pretend to be comparing myself to His level... but my point is that I think we overlook the abundance of the gifts in others that are around us sometimes because we are too close to the people in our lives and we tend to see the faults and things that ought to be corrected in them and we often overlook the things that they are truly gifted at… on any level.

I think mostly about my children, whom I’ve had to play the parent card on so many times that I often overlook the gifts they may also be hiding from me because I’m demanding more “perfection” from them in their daily lives.

It seems natural to me that we to look to folks we don't know as our inspiration, our guidance, our influences, our hero's, and I think the reason is we aren't around them enough to see their flaws and their human sides.

I can be so much this way. I can name the musicians that have influenced my life, the athletes, the authors, the politicians... but in reality, the people that have influenced my life the most are the common folks that are all around me in my everyday life. Most, if not all of us, will not make any grand statement on the big stage, but everyone of us are making an impression on everyone that comes into our lives.

And so I am trying to look much closer for the Diamonds that are in the rough, but are beginning to shine all around me! If your eyes come here, you certainly are one of them! The blogs I read, and the time I spend with you in business, or in play, or in emails or chats, or in living with... those are the things that have the most lasting impression on me! I am grateful for the many wonderful folks in my life!

As I think about my own dreams, and what I know is inside of me, I think of the many times that a word or expression from someone close to me has closed me down just as I was beginning to bring my dreams out into the forefront. In reality, the only one that can choose for me to feel the way I feel is me, so I bought into the naysayer’s, or the critics, or the apathy towards what I am trying to share, and I am solely responsible for keeping my heart on the back burner.

What I am also thinking about this morning is what I may have said or done to others to shy them away from the dreams in their hearts! Each of us has a gift that no one else has. Each of us has a piece of the puzzle that will make us great if we share. It is my prayer this morning that I remember to honor the diamonds around me, no matter how rough they may seem to appear to me right now…You really are the hero's of my journey.

(And I hope this friend can forgive me for using her as an example in this blog, but she has been one of the greatest gifts in my life for a very long time, and whether she knows it or not, one of my most favorite inspirations!)