Do you want to be water or lemonade?

I read this great article the other day that has really stuck with me. The story goes like this.

The little girl comes home from school and tells her mom that a certain girl does not like her. The mom asks the girl if she knows of anything that everybody likes. The girl thinks for a little bit and then the mom says, the only thing I can think of is water and that is because it is colorless and tasteless. Then she asks, "Do you want to be water?". The girl gets it and says no, I want to be hot chocolate or better than that , lemonade!

The lady goes on to explain that we do that so much in our lives. We want everyone to like us so we tone down ourselves so that more people will like us but what we lose is our real selves and the part of us that makes us interesting and makes us who we are. She also talked about how we do that to our kids also and want them to calm down, blend in and not make a scene. We want everyone to like them to.

I have to admit that this is really true for me. I find myself sitting and thinking about a certain person and wondering if they like me or not. Maybe they are annoyed by me, maybe I spoke my mind a little to much last time we talked, maybe I talked to much or not enough, or maybe they just plain don't like me. The problem is that then I try to figure out how I should do things different the next time I see them to make things go more smoothly. This is where I get into trouble. I should be saying, I am who I am and if that person does not like me because of that then that is all right. Everybody is not going to like everybody unless we are all water.

The truth is, I like people who are unique and different. Those are the people that I am drawn to. I like to talk to people who have different opinions and ideas then me. I can learn from them or just be entertained by someone who is different then me. I think if we really thought about it this would be true all around. I think that the things that make me uniquely me are what some people are drawn to also.

She talked about how it is the people in history that were a little bit different that did amazing things. I know this to be true because my husband is one of those people. He is very unique and does things his own way but it has gotten him really far but not only that but people really like him. Sometimes I will be out in town and meet someone that knows my husband and they will just rave about him. I think that is pretty amazing. I also know that sometimes I get annoyed and want him to do things my way but when I step back and look at it I know that life would be really boring if my husband was just like me. Just like life would be very bland and boring if everyone out there was just like me.

God made us all different for a reason and I want to embrace that and stop worrying if everybody likes me. I want to be LEMONADE.