Today is where I am right now – where are you?  Today is all I can be right now because I don’t know what tomorrow holds and yesterday is gone…I cannot change what was.  I can change now.  I have choices now.  I can lead or be led today, but it is mine to do with what I choose.

I went to a motivational seminar and I can honestly say it resonated with me and moved my soul.  I did not expect to get out of it what I walked away with, but that is the beauty of the unexpected…sometimes you find it where you least expect it.  Motivation can be a lot of things to a lot of different people and the speakers were as diverse as their talking points.  Steve Forbes (Forbes Magazine), Terry Bradshaw (NFL Quarterback), John Walsh (America’s Most Wanted), Laura Bush (Former First Lady) and General Colin Powell (Former Secretary of State) are just a few who spoke to the crowd of 30,000 – each telling their own story, unique to them and their choices.  I laughed, I listened, I held on to my heart when I felt it break for those who have endured what I don’t dare imagine, and I connected with the words and thoughts as they passed from their mouths to our ears.

It wasn’t full of promises telling the crowd that we would succeed or that if we bought products A, B & C our lives would be transformed.  It wasn’t filled with a rosy economic outlook for the future that made us believe changes were unnessasary, but there was a common undertone to each message…US.  It is each of US who affect the world around us.  It is each of us who determine our life and our future and yet so often we can only see what someone else has done to lead us to where we are today.  One of my favorite quotes of the day sums it up best: “It is not where you came from, but where you are going that matters.”

We each face trials we would rather not, perhaps moments when we ask “Why me?”  We each face joy and happieness and know the sweetness of love and the bitter sting of loss.  We’ve each been up and we’ve each been down and yet somehow we manage to feel alone in a world where we imagine no one knows how we are feeling.  Sometimes we feel better than someone else or more deserving of something because we have set ourselves apart, but for what and based on what criteria?  Who are we to judge, least we be judged ourselves.

We are each just people with our own hopes and dreams.  Perhaps we all need to be reminded to step back, adjust our view and take ourselves a little less seriously.  Perhaps a little less take and a little more give is where we start…which is where I plan to start today.