Our Differences Are Our Strength

Rejoice in who you are!
Because who and what you are is a gift to the entire world.

How good are you about your New Year resolutions?
Do most of them involve making changes of some sort to what you’ve done and who you’ve been in the past? That’s the usual format for New Year resolutions … and probably why they hardly ever work.

Perhaps the best possible resolution you can ever make is to first acknowledge and celebrate who you are right at this moment, and then resolve to be better at being you than you’ve ever been before. Not to be different. Not to be someone else. Just to be you – but better at it.

Every single human being brings unique strengths and gifts into existence the moment we are born. There’s not a human being alive who does not have something worthwhile, something of inestimable value to offer the rest of us.

All each of us needs to do is to take the time and make the effort – with humility but also with honesty – to discover and validate our unique strengths. To acknowledge the qualities, abilities and talents we were blessed with at birth to share with the rest of humanity.

A United States Congressman by the name of Tribble once told a story about trying to teach his daughter that she was a unique individual. Wherever she went, people were constantly associating the little girl with her well-known father. "You must be Congressman Tribble's little girl," everyone would say patronizingly. “Aren’t you proud to have such a famous daddy?”

One day, the child had enough of this. She went to her parents and told them she wanted to be known as herself, not just as “Congressman Tribble's daughter”. Her father told her not to be so sensitive and to just forget about it.

However, her mother, being the Congressman’s wife, understood the problem a little more sympathetically. She suggested, "Sweetie, the next time that happens, just stand up straight, hold your head high and say, 'I am Constance Tribble!'"

Just a few days later, at a packed press conference, the little girl’s chance came. A group of reporters met her and when they heard her name, they said, "Well then, Congressman Tribble must be your father!"

Constance looked right back at them, stood up straight, held her head high and said, "Oh, no! That's not what my mother says!"

There was probably little doubt that Congressman Tribble was her father, but that fact alone did not define who Constance Tribble was. She quite rightly believed herself to be someone of value, separate from her father. She wanted people to acknowledge her for herself.

YOU are totally unique. How much value do you place on what makes you different? Just as no one in life has ever had the same fingerprints as you, no one in the world has ever had exactly your perspective, your sense of humor, your skills and abilities and your potential.

No one has ever been and no one ever will be again – YOU!

The beauty of the Rainbow comes not from any single color in preference to, or domination over, any others, but from the wonderful, magical, harmonious blending of them all.

I wish you a brilliant lifetime of being YOU!