Lesson 2 ~ Choose Your Influences

While in New York I had a delicious meal at Serendipity and ended it all with their world famous frozen hot chocolate. It was wonderful! The restaurant was small and had the quintessential New York feeling to it (at least to me!). I went there because a while back Oprah went there on her show. She said it was something everyone should have in their lifetime (and I agree!) So I had to go.

In case no one has noticed she (the Big O) is an influence of mine. This made me think a little about the other influences in my life and their importance. We all have influences in our lives whether it be where we live, the people we admire, friends, coworkers, music, literature, or religon. They all play a major part in who and what we are. It's easy to leave it at that and move on.... but yall know I'm on this kick of deciding who we are. One way that we do that is to decide what influences us. My Mom is the perfect example. She is a devout Christian and pretty much only exposes herself to things that fall in line with that. She only listens to Christian music, reads Christian books, Christian programming.... and the majority of her friends are...... yup.. Christians! I admire her for cultivating her life into exactly what she desires, I believe that she is who she wants to be. Each of us should be doing the exact same thing, we should build our lives up into what we want them to be ~ which includes our influences. If you want a postive life cut out the negative people, if you want a healthy life you might want to spend a little less time with your foody friends! and so on and so on.

So the question from here is who do you want to be? What influences are in your life and are they contributing to who you want to be. For me I'm trying to expose myself to as much as possible, and at the same time not expose myself to everything out there. I cut out tv almost completely ( I watch Charlie Rose, sometimes SNL, and very seldomly 90's sitcoms). I personally believe that entertainment breeds mediocrity (future post to come....sometime!), thats why I cut it out. I read now....I know it's still entertainment but it's active entertainment, and I tend to learn something about myself or the world around me from a good book. The point is that we should all make very deliberate decisions as to what and who our influences are. We only have this one life and this one moment at a time and I think we should make it exactly how we want it.

Better Me Epiphany ~ Part of who I am and am to become is influenced by what I expose myself to on a daily basis. I will make a conscious effort to keep an open mind but still take the responsibility to decide what exposure pushes me into my best self.