I was at a Relief Society meeting at our church last week and heard a story attributed to George Durrant. I can't find the actual story to verify it but it resonated with me.
Here's my wildly paraphrased version--adapted for my purposes to authenticity.
Don't live your life with your curtains and windows open so anyone walking by would look at you and say, "Wow, that's a successful person/life."
That would be exhausting for one thing. For another thing, if you're constantly trying to live so that other people are impressed with you, you aren't living in an authentic way.
Does this seem at odds with what I wrote about imagining a person who you admire near you, watching you?
Because I don't think it is. Imagining a loving and supportive person watching you is encouraging. It makes you want to be better and more like the real you. Feeling like the world is judging you and you have to perform for your biggest (real or imagined) critics, is a different thing altogether.
In the story I heard attributed to George Durrant, he said to close the curtains. Be yourself. Be comfortable. Enjoy your family. Stop feeling like you have to perform for other people.
More on this tomorrow but for today, shut the curtains. Contrary to what William Shakespeare wrote, the world is not a stage.
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