I love the kindness of strangers.

Jessica thought this quote might have some meaning for me. So she sent it my way care of Naomi over at Rockstar Diaries. 

All your life you are told the things you cannot do. 

All your life they will say you are not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or achieve this.

 THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. 

All your life they will tell you  no, quite firmly and very quickly. 

AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES.

I love that: until the no's become meaningless.

And then, the other day, I got a really unbelievable email from a young woman who spoke of the importance of faith. Faith in one's self. And of course faith in a higher power. And there I was reading it when I had (what Oprah would call) an ah-ha moment. Of course. Faith in a higher power I'm working on. But faith in one's self? How many times has someone said that to me? How many times have I seen that stitched into a decorative pillow? And each time I glossed over it going, yeah, yeah, yeah--duh. But here it was once more. And it hit me. My faith in myself has faltered. I put far too much stock in the opinion of others. And faith in one's self takes work (if it doesn't than you're a far better person than I--though I'd venture a guess that you work at it without even realizing that's what you're doing). 

The yes must begin in me. 

This is the year the nation said Yes, we can. It's about time I started saying Yes, I can. 

Was that too cheesy for your taste? Well...sometimes I like a little bit of cheese.