What’s important to me and what I want my kids to know is:

-set standards of what they want their life to be like

-to love themselves

-to believe in their own magic/ strength /heart/ power

-to be kind humans

I think if you have standards and won’t ‘settle’ for life being not quite what you imagined, then you work to change it. But I also think that you have to have the other ingredients in order to be happy and a good human.

One of the main ways in my family that we learned about standards was from a poem.  My grandma Ethel had a favourite poem she would recite to us.

Myself (Edgar Albert Guest)

I have to live with myself and so

I have to be fit for myself to know

To be willing and able as days go by

Always to look myself straight in the eye

I don’t want to stand with the setting sun

And hate myself for the things I’ve done

I don’t want to hide on a closet shelf

A lot of secrets about myself

And fool myself as I come and go

Into thinking that nobody else will know

What kind of man I really am

I don’t want to dress myself up in a sham

I want to go with my head erect

I want to deserve all men’s respect

And in this struggle for fame and pelf

I want to be able to like myself

I don’t want to look at myself and know

That I am a bluster, an empty show

I cannot hide myself from me

I can see what others can never see

I know what others can never know

I cannot fool myself and so

Whatever happens I want to be

Self respecting and conscience free

I have since looked it up online and the wording is slightly different, but the version above is what Grandma Ethel had recited from memory.

Other than the Golden Rule (treat others as you would want to be treated), this is a part of the foundation of my sense of self.  I have found myself evaluating if I could look myself in the mirror, feel proud of myself, would I feel ashamed of myself or have regrets if I acted in a certain manner or made certain decisions. Remember, I most often came from a place of not wanting to do something because of my shy childhood manner – not saying hello, not joining in with people, not participating.

The other big lesson of this poem is that I am the one that is with me the most.  I want to be happy with me and during alone times, I want to enjoy my own ‘company’.  Throughout my life, I am my own constant.

I will make myself proud, I am working on that now.

dikke kus / big kiss,

Devon