It’s not that easy being green.

Kermit the Frog sings about how “It’s not easy being green:

When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold or something much more colorful like that.  (It’s Not That Easy Being Green,” by the Muppets)

If we can be honest, one of the biggest hurdles to get over in life is accepting who we are.   Not that we don’t want to grow and improve, but first we have to start with the basic package: “me.”  

The problem starts when we compare ourselves with others. Someone’s always taller, thinner, richer, smarter, better looking.   Someone’s got more talent and social graces and attracts people and good luck like a magnet, it seems.  

And is it only imagination that everyone else out there doesn’t have all those hidden weaknesses you have, those insecurities and doubts, fears and emptiness?  Have you got the only troubled marriage?   Are you the only one who can’t make life work out right?  Oh why, oh why, can’t I be more like everbody else?   

“It could make you wonder why,” Kermie ponders.   

At about this point our defenses kick in and we begin excusing, avoiding, rationalizing, blaming or maybe just eating and drinking.  

But if we stop a minute and think about it, there’s something unique about “me” and my life.   I’m one of a kind.   The mold is broken.    For good or for bad, I have a place in this world and people around me with whom I will share a few moments or years in space and time.    I am a link between the generations past and future.   In my own daily life I have power and influence.   I can make other lives happier or sadder, richer or emptier, better or worse.  

Mother Theresa said something that I’ve never forgotten – that it doesn’t matter what you do;  what matters is the love with which you do it.  In some meaningful way you need to accept your intrinsic worth and value in this world – and that of those around you.  Whoever you are, you need to know that “green will do fine”, in fact “it’s beautiful”.   Even more, “it’s what I want to be!”… because the world will never have another you.

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