I read an interesting interview of Shonda Rhimes, the writer/producer of such TV hits as Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. The last question was “What else do you wish women knew?” — but I think the question, and Rhimes’s answer, is applicable to everyone.
” … People deal with so much insecurity and spend so much time thinking, That person is better, so I couldn’t possibly try this. Yes, you can! Everybody puts themselves in little pockets and holds themselves back, but there’s no reason to. Make your own space.”
That last sentence echoed in my heart: Make your own space.
Why do I ever try to squeeze myself into someone else’s space? Or why do I ever try to conform myself to someone else’s image in my space? It’s usually because, like Rhimes said, I’m looking at them thinking they’re better than me. Or I’m thinking of all the reasons I won’t succeed.
I need to stop checking out other people and their spaces. Instead, I should focus on making my own space. What do I want that space to look like — who do I want to be? If I know that — if I define myself, my space — I’ll fit into that space just fine. Anyone else’s space? Let them have it. I don’t belong there.
In Your Words: Are you making your own space? How? How would you describe it?
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Comments 2
Sure, I’ve got my own space. Its boundaries are pain, fatigue, incontinence, and things that are worse than these.
But it’s mine. Having no choice but to fight from within these walls, I will give no quarter. The odds are stark, and I will never surrender, not even to God and all His angels. Count me as dead, and I will strike from the grave. Like Ahab, were my heart a cannon I would shoot it out at thee.
Bring it. This space sucks, but anyone trying to take it will wish they had never been born.
And after the deguello sounds on the cold morning air, it will not be me that will find he can’t turn his head. (Deguello is a trumpet call, adapted by Spain from the Moors, that means ‘to cut the throat’.)
Author
Andrew,
When I think of you, I hear the words, “Bring it.”
I, too, have claimed space I would never have imagined. No comparing here — just agreeing that our spaces can be dream-filled and pain-filled, and they are ours.
And yes, we must say, “Bring it.”
In claiming my space I’ve learned that it’s not in my strength that I can do it … and that the shape of who I am is not who I originally imagined. But when I look in the mirror — and when I glimpse my soul — I know this is how God allows me to reflect Him to the world.