You Are the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread by Samantha Renke

Author:Samantha Renke [Renke, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529192186
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2022-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

6

Be Your Own Muse

‘I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.’

Oroma Elewa

If I could go back to my younger self, I’d simply say this: spend less time worrying about trying to fit in, trying to be popular, a carbon copy of someone else. Stop looking to others for validation and inspiration. Instead, invest more time in yourself and become the person you’d be proud of, inspired by and thankful for. Be your own goddamn muse. Forget about finding yourself and concentrate on creating yourself.

I’m not disputing the importance of role models, people you look up to and feel inspired by. Heck, I’d say that I aspire to be one of those people and, by gosh, as a disabled kid I longed for the day I could turn on my television screen or open the pages of Mizz and Girl Talk (popular nineties magazines, in case you were wondering) and see people who looked like me.

One of the reasons I agreed to write this book was simply in the hope I can be of comfort to others. I hope my words make people feel heard, less isolated and, yes, although I have a complex relationship with the word (which we will come on to very soon), I am going to say I hope to be an inspiration to others. But wouldn’t it be nice if we all spent just that little bit more time learning who we are instead of always looking to others for answers?

The best thing you can ever do is invest in yourself. Own it. Own your identity. Your uniqueness. Your insecurities. Your strengths. Recognise that what you bring is wonderful and you can find an inner peace and a sense of worth in a world that can at times seem like it’s spiralling out of control. You know when people say, ‘You come into this world alone and you leave this world alone’? That’s all sounds rather morbid and sad, as though there’s no real point to it all. No real point in falling in love or making connections with others. What I hear is actually rather the opposite. I see this as an opportunity to celebrate yourself, to fall in love with you, and to make the biggest connection of all. With your own self.

This, I believe, has always been my biggest strength, perhaps because I spent a lot of my childhood alone. Either in hospital or in my bedroom. As a child who could fracture her bones with a sneeze, the outside world was a daunting place, which meant I spent a lot of time in my own company. I believe I was 14 by the time I had my first sleepover at a school friend’s. Even that took some persuasion as many of my friends’ parents didn’t want the responsibility of having a brittle-boned kid under their care.

True, I didn’t have as many playdates or social interactions as most other kids growing up, but this allowed me to get to know myself from an early age.

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