#fallbackintoshape2017 day 13. Reading and loving Rita Davenport's Funny Side Up. It gets better with every page. :) I promise, Rita will not disappoint you. Run and get this book in your life!

She asks: "Do you have good china, crystal or silverware that you never use because you're waiting "for special"? And what about the finest aspects of you?" (45). How inspiring. I totally get caught up in this. I have an entire tea set that I'd been waiting years to buy. I finally bought it about 6 months ago. The day it came in the mail I almost cried. And all but 2 cups are still packed away in a cabinet because we don't have enough space for the set and our regular dishes. We even had tea with friends recently. I need to take it out and enjoy it! What parts of myself and talents am I saving for a rainy day? What do I have inside me right now that could bless another person? Or bring me more joy in my life?

Rita later advises: "Pursuing your greatest potential is not only an act of ambition, but also an expression of gratitude and appreciation. It means being grateful for the gifts you have been given, by giving them full expression, and not squirreling them away on a shelf where they'll never see the light of day. If you're not using the best in yourself, you're not appreciating the best in yourself. Which means you're depreciating" (46). Depreciating? You mean I am losing "value" when I'm not using and sharing my talents? It makes sense. The way our muscles need constant and consistent (there's that word again. Taking note.) exercise so that they don't atrophy, our talents need expression or they will dim and we will lose them. That would be a terrible waste!

This reminds me of Liz Gilbert in Big Magic when she retells a story about a book she knew she was meant to write but didn't. A few years later that book was published, but by someone else, and someone she had been in physical proximity to around the time she was sure it was her book. She explained that creativity is just bouncing around out there. It wants to be used. If one person won't use it, it'll find someone else that will. I love the imagery of that. I  think of a little bubble on the wind with excitement and hope in it's little face, just waiting to land on someone's shoulder - like Jimminy Cricket, and whisper it's magic into someone's ear.

Life isn't about luck. Or fate. Its about choices. Who we are, what we want, and what we are willing to give to the world.

Feeling inspired!