Authentic.  This is my word for 2018.  As the Christian world settles into the Lenton season, a time of reflection, I find myself thinking about my word and how it has been guiding me so I thought I would share.  Like many in the nursing profession, I am a recovering “pleaser”.  You know, the ones who do things for others and relish in the good feelings bestowed upon our great efforts.  Until we don’t get the feedback we want and our feathers get ruffled that “no one cared or noticed” all that I did!  BTW, the rest of the world did not realize they were responsible for our happiness and well-being, so no surprised the collectively failed us.  Pleasers do a LOT of stuff they may not actually want or enjoy doing, but we martyr through them because we believe the world thinks we must.   This world view puts your happiness in other people’s hands and eventually you wonder why you are doing so much, for so many and still not happy.

I mentioned I am recovering because I am intentionally trying to put happiness back in my control.  One of the biggest and hardest things to know is what the heck it is that really makes you happy and I have boiled it down to the word “authentic”.    Definition #3 on Dictionary.com is “representing one’s true nature or beliefs; true to oneself or to the person identified:”  To be really happy, you gotta do you.  And “you” are not a disease, or a label, or a title, or a role.  You may “have” some of these, but they are not you.  One clue to your authentic self is your preferences.  Chocolate/vanilla, mountains/beach, salty/sweet, adrenaline lover /peace seeker, red/yellow.  Why does one person like it one way, and someone else likes it another?    It is just authentically how we are. 

So as 2018 roles on, I am intentionally doing me.  So far, I’m pretty happy!