Yesterday I was at the mall looking for a pair of shoes to take to France. Toms were what I had in mind until I walked by a small but glamorous looking shoe store with heels and other frilly things. I went in on impulse and tried on a pair of camel brown dolly heels and looked at myself in the mirror. My anxious mind was saying, "You're not cool enough to wear these. You're not cool enough to live. People will judge you and stare at your shoes and wonder why you were born." Then I tried to realize how silly that was and decided to buy them because I LIKE THEM and because I want to feel GOOD about myself. I want a new mantra: "I love myself, I am happy with myself, and I am content being myself."

I came home, put on a new dress and my new shoes and was ready to go out and try to be a lighter spirit that has more fun. However, I worried so much about the rain and what it would do to my shoes that it caused me to change back out of those clothes. By the time I did that, it was too late to go out again and we decided to stay home. I was very unhappy at first because I have trouble handling a change in plans; how can we not do what we had planned to do? I thought. But I'm trying to understand that it's okay that things will not always go as planned. That's how life IS and I will forever be unhappy if I try to fight against the universe and against the things I can't control. I believe that you choose how to see the world, that you choose the paths you take, but that there are some things that are just out of your realm of control (like whether it rains) and there are decisions you must make accordingly (to wear or not to wear these shoes?).

So as much as I hate that I let my fear of weather ruining my things and my fears about what other people think control what I do, I feel like I've made a small accomplishment in the fact that I am trying to cope with change and I loved myself enough in that moment to get something I liked and wanted. It may seem silly from the outside world, but your personal triumphs are measured against yourself and your own progress, not the advances of others.

Be kind to yourself today.