Question #14: Who is the most inspiring person you know??
A NEW YEAR (A.N.Y.), a new way question series:
On January first, I posted our first article in this series explaining a new way to approach New Year's resolutions. Each day we will explore a different question that challenges us to understand ourselves better. The format will be as follows: I will post the previous day's question with my answer followed by the next day's question for contemplation.
Here is my answer:
Cat Woman Vs Cat Lady
Cat Woman
Have you ever met a superhero? Sure if you go to a comic book convention you could spend some time with someone dressed as your favorite character. It wouldn’t take much time to see the difference between the costume and the person. There are countless superheroes that walk the streets, but they don't need costumes to hide their appearance or deeds. I have had the privilege of meeting one. Now she’s not one to be front and center with her super powers and doesn’t need the spotlight to gain popularity; she simply lives her life in a super way. What are her super powers? They are empowerment and enrichment. Her beginnings were meager and confusing but despite those she worked hard to improve herself. At first, her success was academically and then in her career. It wasn’t until she decided to leave all that that her super power really came into being. Challenging herself with her change in career brought her to another journey; this time one within herself. She changed my view of successful people to be one that I would like to emulate instead of judge.
Cat Lady
There are two components necessary for the achievement of the cat lady title:
- the number of cats owned and,
- the mental attitude.
Color me surprised, but did you know they have actually calculated the number of cats a woman must acquire to earn the title of a Cat Lady? The number was a decimal over four which always confused me. Like the calculated average amount of children per family, how can we have a decimal of a being? Regardless, I have four cats so I’m a partial cat away from being awarded that inauspicious title. Little did I know but I was slowly acquiring the mental attitude as well. Wikipedia describes a cat lady as such:
"Cat lady is a single woman, often a stock character (ummm this means stereotypical… not a fat joke), who owns many pet cats. The term is usually considered pejorative (derogatory term), though it is sometimes embraced. They can have problems relating to other people, and they substitute cats for personal relationships."
With the current turn of events in my life, I had slowly begun to pull away from people. I had moments of feeling defeated and not wanting to socialize with people meanwhile building closer relationships with my cats. This is where Cat Woman came into play for she was one of the few women I still yearned to socialize with. There was a raging battle within me for the confident parts of myself connected with her yet the defeated parts wondered why she would.
Mirror Mirror
I have been blessed by the company I keep. This woman, among others, personified the success that I always wanted. At first I felt the envy that I described in question 8 of this series, but that has slowly turned to admiration and understanding. Why the change? A deeper understanding of the mirroring theory. We discussed the mirroring theory in question 2 but from the perspective of finding faults. Now we get to the best part of the theory, finding the successes. Like draws like therefore we draw successful people into our life as an encouragement and guide despite how it can feel. The best parts we see in them are the undiscovered and undeveloped successes we have in ourselves. So with Cat Woman, she showed me that I had the similar power to empower and enrich others in my own special way. Often we tend to have Cat Lady mentality and only focus on our shortcomings and compare those to other people’s strengths. That keeps us small and ineffective. Time to embrace our own super powers and become the superhero we were meant to be.
Did this response resonate with you? I would love to hear your take on the question and how it impacted you. Please post your thoughts below.
Tomorrow's question: Do you put up with negative influences?
Response posted tomorrow.
Who is the Common Guru? Here is our introductory article
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