In a world of people wanting to slim down, my daughter and I are trying to plump up.
Not physically but spiritually.
We’ve figured out that the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule and all the other guidelines for goodness can be summed up this way:
Be Your Bigger Self.
You know your Bigger Self. It’s the self you like best, the generous, loving, open-hearted person that you would like to be all the time. Instead, your Smaller Self often intervenes.
“I don’t want to go to the anniversary party,” I confess to Sara.
“Be big for an hour, Mom,” she says. “Then you can come home and be small again.”
You know your Smaller Self. It’s the self you like least, the petty, critical, controlling person that you would like to never be but who is very hard to get rid of. In fact, the Smaller Self has an even tinier version. A friend with whom I have shared these conversations sometimes asks,
“May I be my Micro-Self?”
I wish it weren’t so hard to be my Bigger Self. Maybe I‘m just hopeless; maybe I’m just human.
Regardless, I’m on my way to the anniversary party—for an hour.
