How many hats do you have?

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players;
they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays
many parts."
~~~William Shakespeare (As You Like It)

Did Shakespeare know everything? He sure knew a lot about people.

My list of roles: wife, mother, aunt, teacher, student, daughter, sister, cousin, friend, neighbor, in~law, shopper, driver, voter, cook, housekeeper, homemaker, bookkeeper, hairdresser, and an assorted relative to many, and who knows what I might have left out, and, of course, the order is always shifting itself, so my gears are sometimes grinding...(that's the irritating noise going on in the background.)

And in all this, to mine own self I must be true. Ohhhhkay. Sometimes I lose mine own self in all that. Sometimes I can't find mine own self in all that.

Probably the greatest challenge of my life is to maintain proper balance of the juggling act involved in playing these roles in the game called - Life. I wish I had a more clever word than 'life'....that word's been done to death..(hahaha, that was a joke, get it 'life' 'death'?...) anyway,

In the need to play the roles one has, one must learn how to act and how to be sincere at the same time. And you have to be able to switch hats in mid-stream, should you need to, if you want to be very good at what you do. So to be successful at all these jobs, let's see --
if you were filling out a job application, what would quality you for what you do. Experience! Experience that comes from On The Job Training! That's how you get good at it!

Wait. This is getting confusing...so
You have to be a 'thing', but you can't know how to be the 'thing', until you've been the 'thing?' Oh well, I wonder what Shakespeare has to say about that? (Surely, there will be something I will stumble across, especially now that I'm thinking about it.)

Which brings me to the point of always listening to your elders! They have 'been-there-and-done-that'...and even if you don't agree with them, you can learn something from them, even if it's to know how not to be. No experience goes by without learning something. Unless you are a boring person. Then you will end up an empty vessel with no stories to tell. Just a boring pot with nothing planted in it.

I don't want to be boring, yet, sometimes, I am bored -- and I think, can a person who is not boring be bored? I don't know.

There are a lot of things I don't know, but I'm working on it...And there might some things that aren't for me to know. What if I knew everything? Then I might 'really' be boring!

Well, back to the stage --
Now think, I say to myself -- what do I want to be? What part do I want to play?

The parts I’m trying out for:

I want to be inspiring. Inspirational! I want to be inspiring to my husband and my children and my friends and relatives, even my parents and strangers that I meet. I want to be encouraging. I want to be positive. I want to be reliable. I want to be kind. I want to leave no ill will in my path. I want a good review after the play is over! I'd love for God to say 'well done.' What a task I have before me...

as you know,
There are no dress rehearsals in Life! Everyday, You're On!
So, then, that means *I'm a star!* Hahahaha. Just kidding...

I have to look for things that will empower me. Then I can empower others with good words and good feelings. And back to Shakespeare, reminding me to mine own self be true, he also said,

"our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven."

Now, I'm taking that to mean, I have to rely on a source greater than myself to accomplish these goals of good nature I have set for myself. That source to me is God, with Whom a connection is very important to me.

But as for This Day (LOTR!)

and the hours in it! – I must discipline myself to accomplish some of the goals on my 7 day project list because if I don’t do that, I won’t be able to be who I want to be….I won’t be able to be True to Mine Own Self because I will have regret hanging over me, and that is Not a desirable goal!

"Difficulties increase the nearer we approach our goal."

~~~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe