50 Things to Exclude from the Self-Improvement Campaign

50 Things I Like About Myself? Like? When I saw Arianne’s post, Fifty Things I Like About Myself, I was intrigued and challenged. She managed to come up with 50 things, I got to know her a little better, and for a sec I came to recognize that just being who you are can make you pretty awesome. …Or at least she sounded pretty awesome!

To avoid coveting someone else’s personality, I realized that I must accept her lofty challenge and try to come up with 50 things I like about lil’ ol’ me. As my mind began to wander through options, I immediately realized that I spend a heck of a lot of time thinking about all the things I’d like to change about myself, and not so much time allowing myself to just be who I am.

So it’s time to swap things back a bit. I think I may even include some things that I tend to dislike about myself. Sometimes you gotta just let it be, and love it the way it is…

OK, here goes! (Wish me luck.)

Fifty Things I’d Like to I Like About Myself

1. I’m some smartie.
2. I have a fabulous husband who is so very nice.
3. I have two beautiful kids.
4. I dedicate myself to my children’s happiness with passion and commitment. (Yeah, gotta get back to me here or I’d be breakin’ the rules!)
5. I like to go on walks.
6. I don’t like riding in cars.
7. I don’t wear perfume.
8. My kids inherited my eyes, and they’re pretty to look at.
9. I’m enthusiastic.
10. I like to help people.
11. I’m not afraid to give people compliments and I try to do it often.
12. I give genuine compliments.
13. I don’t bullsh*t.
14. I like to listen to people, especially when they’re feeling down and need someone to be there for them.
15. I give good advice without telling people what to do.
16. I’m kinda soulful.
17. I hang my diapers on the line to conserve energy.
18. I read ingredient labels.
19. I have pretty good taste in humans, so my friends are pretty darn awesome if I do say so myself.
20. In my day, I did a pretty good Ach Ich Fuhls, and I could probably still manage an operatic aria if I tried… and it’d be all beautiful-like.
21. I gave some folks a few blissful moments of some of the most startlingly sublime musical compositions ever written: Mozart, Verdi, Bizet, Copeland, Barber, Wolf, Chausson…
22. I have some good memories.
23. I’m an adventurer.
24. I went to art school.
25. My words can be poetic, or they can be plain old silly.
26. I breastfeed.
27. In video-game-land, I’m a Guitar Hero.
28. I wear floral prints and wild colors and scarves with rainbows on them.
29. I’ve always hated the color purple, but I wear silly purple rubber shoes just for fun.
30. I am obsessive and dedicate myself completely to the things I do.
31. I sing silly songs, with lyrics that don’t rhyme and sometimes include potty humor.
32. I poop, just like Taro Gomi says, and I fart too.
33. My bedroom is furnished with Danish modern pieces I rescued from warehouses and basements.
34. And a quirky 60’s painting of a bearded merchant with a pack mule all done up in colors of aqua, red, and yellow.
35. I renovated a loft in New York.
36. I survived 9/11.
37. I can make an awful lot of money if I want to.
38. I don’t.
39. I home school.
40. My 12-year old reads Noam Chomsky and hates McDonalds.
41. For fun, I make spreadsheets and databases to track things like my family’s daily nutrition, and baby’s used clothing inventory through Age 2.
42. I belong to a farm share.
43. I’m nice.
44. I love garlic.
45. My baby laughs at me.
46. I am — for the first time in my life — saving money.
47. I make my own cleaning products.
48. I have funny looking toes.
49. I married a man who loves me and treats me well.
50. The most important thing to me is bringing some measure of happiness and good into the world for now and for the future.

Phew! 50! I did it! And I’m not even gonna edit it! There it is, as it is.

I’m excited now to go back and read the posts by Arianne’s other commenters, which I put off until now to make sure I didn’t cheat and play copycat. If you’d like to read more folks posting their “50 things,” check the comments on her post. Or, if you’d like to do your own and spread the self love, be sure to comment there (and here too!) to join the party.

C’mon you can do it! It got pretty hard at about 30, and then again at about 45, but I have to say, I’m feelin’ a lot better now than I did about a half an hour ago! Thanks to Arianne and Deb at A Stitch In Time for the idea.

Love,

Mama Hope