Commandment #1 – Be Cali

I’ll admit I lifted this one directly from The Happiness Project. The Authors simple “Be Gretchen” really spoke to me – her need for it even more so.

Why do we find it so hard to simply be ourselves? What does that even mean – who else could we be? When I really look at that deceptively simple commandment “Be Cali” I start to realize why it may very well be the most effective commandment I choose (and why I choose to list it as number one). Because it’s not simple to be yourself, be happy with yourself, be fully in the moment as yourself, to wish nothing more for yourself than to simply be the best YOU that you can be...

I have a girlfriend I admire greatly for many reasons. She’s celebrated my triumphs with me, played nurse maid when I was too injured to properly care for myself, and taken care of my heart when it most desperately needed a gentle friend. She’s brave in ways I’m not, fiercely loyal, the kind of talented that makes performance seem easy, and on top of it all she just happens to be smokin’ hot. Seriously, the girl is Susan-Sarandon-cum-Bull-Durham-but-prettier-and-with-eyes-so-blue-they-could-cut-glass-with-a-glance hot. It would be very easy for me to wish I had her effortless grace and sex appeal, her ease on stage, or her ability to tell anyone exactly what she thinks about anything regardless…it would be very easy to cross that fine line between admiration and jealousy.

Now, I’m not saying I don’t possess some nice qualities myself. I have a few tricks up my performer’s sleeve, I’m maybe even a little more comfortable on stage as myself than she is, and my fiancé would tell anyone willing to listen (and some who aren’t) that I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. Unfortunately these aren’t the thoughts that pop into my mind 50,000 times a day. We can’t possibly consider what we have when we’re concentrating so hard on our have-nots. Sometimes it’s easy to see wonderful qualities in others and wish they were your own. Sometimes it’s far too easy to see a leggy blonde walk by and wish you had her body, or to visit a home someone else has and wish you had one that nice, or to see someone else perform on stage and wish you were THAT good, or that you could play the ingénue for once, or that it was your multi-million dollar selling album or…the list could go on and on, and sometimes it does. It’s just so very easy to look outward and yearn, pine for, covet all that belongs to others, because their grass is just so much damned greener than ours. And the inevitable flip side of that coin is always devaluing what we do have. It’s a destructive, ugly cycle that only serves to beget more negativity. And it’s pointless because you never can be someone else, you never can have what others have, and you never can live anyone else’s life but your own.

Frankly, I don’t want to waste my time anymore. I’m all for self-improvement. I just want whatever improvements I put into action to stem from me, and not what I perceive as someone else’s “better-than”. I want to be myself without comparing my looks, my body, my talents, my career, or my pocket book with those of other people. It’s not as easy to be happy being yourself. It’s constantly reminding yourself until it’s second nature to believe that who you are is great, it’s replacing the “have-not” thoughts with the knowledge that what you do have is plenty, it’s comparing who you are today only with who you were yesterday, and who you want to be tomorrow. It won’t be easy to just “Be Cali” but it’s far more beneficial than the alternative. And really shouldn’t I be most proud of the one thing in the world that only I can do?