To Mine Own Self Be True

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man-- William Shakespeare.

This quote of Shakespeare’s has become my mantra of late. Actually for the past few years, I have been stubbornly holding onto my own idea of what I want to do with the rest of my life. The way I see it, God created me to be me. He created me to be the best me that I could be, not someone else. I was given a set of circumstances in life, talents, predispositions, weaknesses, and all together, they are what comprise who I am. I am given all these ingredients like a puzzle and have been asked to put it all together into one harmonious package. Too often I have looked at the weaknesses (with help from others I might add) and only saw what I couldn't do. Other times I have looked only at what I thought was good and saw myself as limitless, but then fell on my face because I forgot about the challenges created by the aspects of me which are less favorable. I do best when I am truly in tune with whom God created me to be, even though being honest with who I am doesn’t always seem to be the path of least resistance. My life is like a painting painted in bright and dark colors. The dark colors framing the bright ones causing them to appear to pop from the canvas of time. It is the dark moments, those times in which I am barely able to hold on, that lead to my brightest victories. So what does all this have to do with the coming year? Well, it has to do with the fact that I have unfulfilled desires that need to be explored. I have some wonderful dreams, and in light of eternity, I have only a few short years left to fulfill those dreams in this lifetime. If I'm going to get any of my dreams fulfilled, I need to get on with what I know I want to do. That’s why during this next year I am laying the ground work in making some of these dreams begin to come to fruition. I'm going to be completing my second year of college and beginning my third. I am going to be starting a newsletter after the first of the year, so that I can begin to organize my social networking writing platform. I am also going to be finishing my second novel--Soldiers Don't Cry and publishing it June 30th of this year. I am looking forward to 2012 to being a busy, rewarding year. This all will be the foundation of further plans that I have. I plan to build my own publishing company. This company will not be just for my work, but for the work of countless other Indie writers. I also plan to teach. I love teaching, especially reading and writing. I also would like to begin public speaking. I have been thinking of ways to do that. There are a lot of people who know me who probably can't imagine me going that route. I know I’ve failed them in the past. I failed me in the past. But I know who I am now, and I will be true to myself from here on out.