Don't Settle for the Small Love

You are meant for so much more

I have no idea what this photo means. But she’s definitely doing her own thing.

Let’s not play small. Let’s be giants and …

Decline the small love.

Try on the big dream.

Ignore the Nervous Nellies of this life.

And find our mofo joy.

1. Don’t Settle for the Small Love

Small love. Ah, the “good enough” size that life so often holds up for inspection, like a Halloween shortie when you’re hoping for full-size.

It’s not what you really want but you’re almost ready to accept it because it’s … something. In a world full of nothing, at least it’s yours.

Oh no. Don’t do that.

Hold out for the big love.

The all-encompassing hug of your life and your being. The love where someone looks at you like you are magic.

The love you’re ready to give. And the one you really want but are afraid doesn’t exist because you are different and kind of weird and you’ve been this way your whole life and once someone told you that you better settle because it was better to have something than nothing.

But settling sucks.

And that person was wrong. She was wrong too about the shoes she wanted you to wear and the Botox she said you should get. You like the way your face looks and you don’t care that your forehead has more lines than a school notebook so why should anyone else? Don’t surrender.

2. Hold out for the big dream

Whatever your dream is right now …

You can make it bigger.

There’s no extra cost to super-sizing your dream. It’s a DREAM!

Play around with it. Push the corners. Blow your dream up bigger until it’s like a balloon that can’t take one more breath of air, so tight and full is the skin, ready to fly away when you decide to let it be free.

Maybe it’s not practical. Maybe it’s insane to dream that big. But you won’t truly know the borders of your dream until you go past them … and then you can decide the right size for you. So dream big.

3. Ignore the Nervous Nellies

There are plenty of people willing to tell you why something won’t work … or why you should be afraid … or why you’ll get your heart broken.

Okay.

Maybe you’ll fail and get crushed.

You. Not them.

Nod your head when they talk but keep your spirit safe from the reach of their frightened hands.

Their fear does not have to become yours.

Better you should fall and totally faceplant than never have stood up at all.

And go ahead and tell your fear to stuff it.

4. Find Your Joy

This world is full of so many people grinding it out, hating their lives, and waiting to die.

Like one of our Supreme Court Justices said, “If life’s really hard, at least it’s short.” That was Amy Coney Barrett. What a great gal she must be …

Don’t be an Amy. Find your joy even if it means strapping on a big belt in the middle of a gym of young’uns and pulling a sled backwards while people wonder, “What was that noise she just made? Is that short-haired woman going to have a heart attack?” (This may have been me, about an hour ago.)

I guess what I’m saying is remember that it’s your life even if (often) it feels like everyone else has their hands in it.

You might as well take charge of your life and find out what you’re really here for.

And act like a giant even if you’re about 5-foot-3 on a good day.

Now, excuse me, I need to go lay down for a while.