Cheryl Ries

Call me special, call me unique, call me one-of-a-kind, but I will not live my life according to the paperdoll cut-out images copied by anyone else!  I want my own life, my own pathway, I don't want to shadow anyone else . . . I want a life that is authentically mine, not a carbon copy, nor a duplicate, nor a contrivance, but rather, reality . . . my own sweet, messy, sometimes stressful, but always real, and a bit bumpy, less-travelled road!

I've had some successes and some failures in my life.  I've done good and bad, made my decisions and lived with the consequences.  I will always be the sum total of my choices, combined with genetics and the family life I was given by God.  I am like no one else, but that's alright by me!  I have modeled my life after no one else.  I have copied no other human being, much less any other woman.  I have made choices which reflect what I needed and wanted at the time, so I must always give myself the credit for living authentically for myself! 

Was I always this paragon of implicit strength?  No.  When I was young, I did what most younger people do, living in some regard swayed by the trends, our friends, our ability to comprehend the world's influences upon us at each and every new rung of the ladder.  I read magazines, watched videos, dreamt of the day I would be just like the supermodel on the cover of some fashion magazine, or emulating my favorite celebrity, wishing I could have their life.  But I was young and oh so impressionable, that's what we do when we are younger, we mimic, we learn by observing, we are not yet mature and developed.  Now, because I am happy with being me, I don't strive to follow any trend, to change my look to suit any other person's style, nor to be anything other than authentically me!

I choose to live my life being the very best me I can be!  I walk independantly in my own shoes, wanting to set goals and dream dreams which pertain to my desires.  I don't complicate my life by usurping a friend's ideas of what life should be, nor assuming their dreams as my own, I let my own roadway play out before me, remembering too that staring in the rear-view mirror of life will just slow me down on my way to reaching my next destination!  I am able to coexist with family, friends, and even my significant other while remaining a separate and distinct person.  If you are not being genuine, nor living authentically, nor discovering what your own dreams look like when played upon the movie screen of your life, then you will never experience the full range of highs and lows on your life's most thrilling amusement ride!  Give up chasing, with eager intent, someone else's version of life, make it all your own!  Take the road less travelled, you might just like charting the unknown!