Take this chance to quiet yourself,
To let what has passed go,
To not worry about what may or may not come.
Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Come to a hit of hope.
This meditation includes some salty language.
To play with a phrase from Jane Austen,
It should be a truth universally acknowledged that you cannot please everyone.
Some people are okay with that.
They don't care.
But for some people,
The fact that you cannot please everyone sucks.
When it happens,
When someone doesn't like what you say,
Who you are,
What you wear,
What you think,
That icky feeling can explode in the center of your being.
Perhaps you know the feeling I'm talking about.
And then,
Perhaps,
The voices start.
I must be wrong.
I must be bad.
I must apologize.
I must change.
And sometimes that can be true.
Sometimes we are wrong,
Or we have made choices that hurt.
Sometimes we should apologize and change.
And yet,
Even if and when you do that,
You will still not please everyone.
You can do your best.
You can change who you are.
You will not please everyone.
But as long as we do our best to not cause harm,
Or as I sometimes say in my group communication class,
As long as you do your best not to be an asshole,
Then we have to be okay with not pleasing everyone.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Be you.
Be the most you you have ever been.
Embrace the best and weirdest and most authentic you that you can find in the depths of your being.
Because that is an awesome you.
And still you will not please everyone,
No matter how awesome this you is.
But that's okay.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Be you.
Namaste.
