Do you know...?

Sorry guys - this is a long post, read at your own risk.

For Christmas I got the book "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert and I am really liking it. I'm reading it slowly and this is a shock for those that have seen me read books before. It's my "waiting for the bus or train" book.

Anyways, about a month ago I read this section that really got me thinking (and it still has me thinking) :

I pointed that woman out to Giulio, and I said, "See, Giulio- that is a Roman woman. Rome cannot be her city and my city, too. Only one of us really belongs here. And I think we both know which one."

Giulio said, "Maybe you and Rome just have different words."

"What do you mean?"

He said, "Don't you know, that the secret to understanding a city and its people is to learn - what is the word of the street?"

Then he went on to explain, in a mixture of English, Italian, and hand gestures, that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there... Rome's word, as it spins through the streets, just bumps up against me and tumbles off, leaving no impact. I'm not participating in the word, so I'm not fully living here. It's a kooky theory, impossible to prove, but I sort of like it.

Giulio asked, "What's the word in New York City?"

I thought about this for a moment, then decided. "It's a verb, of course. I think it's ACHIEVE."

.....Giulio was already on to the next and most obvious question: "What's your word?"

Now that, I definitely could not answer.

So that got me thinking and I was wondering what would my word be?

And then that got me thinking of other things too. Now we all know that thinking is a dangerous past time (Thanks for that Gaston! Gee, I hope I'm not the only one that gets the reference...)

You see, I'm one of those people that find it really hard to fill out questionnaires about myself. What are my achievements? I don't think I have any. In my mind there's a fine line between being cocky and being proud of your achievements and I'm self-conscious to go to the cocky side so I end up dismissing things that I have achieved.

I have found it hard to describe myself when I didn't like myself - I'm self-conscious of everything I think of to type because heaven forbid "someone won't think it's good enough" BUT don't worry I'm much better.... yet I still haven't filled out any info on facebook but that's just because I'm lazy.

In a way I've thought about this already because to think of a word you have to have an understanding about yourself. I've been on a journey of learning to like myself and understand who I am for awhile now and last summer I did this post about being content with yourself. Honestly I was a bit frustrated that I wasn't truly able to express my thoughts, since I received several comments about being content with yourself never means changing so they don't want to be content. Which isn't what I was trying to convey.

So thinking about my word brought me back to that post, because in a way for you to come up with a word you have to be content with who you are. You have to be honest with yourself.

First, let's go back to the thought of being content with yourself. Being content with yourself today means liking yourself and accepting who you are today not who you will be tomorrow. For example:

You think you're chubby and you want to lose 20 pounds, it means thinking "I like myself even though I believe I'm not in the healthiest condition right now. I'm still going to work on my health but it does not define how I feel about myself today." Instead of thinking "I don't really like myself now, but I will like myself once I lose that 20 pounds."

Ok. So now I hope we're all on the same page because here comes the hard part. Are you ready? .....wait for it...... wait for it...... OK!

Now think of who you are and tell me what is your word?

(I have thought of a word and that will be posted in a day or two.)