Who would YOU be?

Everyone I am sure has heard that saying, "What comes around goes around." And although I do not really believe in "karma" per se (because I believe the rain falls on the "just and the unjust"), if I did believe in it, I would sometimes have to laugh and agree that karma can be rather spiteful.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I was lost in my thoughts. It started with amusement: I found myself thinking about a conversation I had had last night with a friend. This friend from back home was telling me about how she had been asked to participate in an interview of a potential colleague. But just recently this other colleague had been extremely rude and condenscending towards this friend - not knowing that she would soon be one of her interviewers. Karma. What comes around goes around.

Which made me wonder...

I thought about this person (who I also know), and I wondered if she were to be asked to sum up in one word her primary goal in life, the one thing she wished to be known for, or defined as, what it would be. Surely not rude or condenscending? I would imagine she would consider herself a thousand other titles before those two... "mother", "ambitious", "intelligent", "hard-working". But it is becoming more apparent to me that the people who surround us are often the ones who name us.

And then my thoughts continued to drift...

In the past, many (famous) people who have been known simply by their first name (i.e. queens/kings/emporerers), were eventually bestowed with titles by the people who observed them in life. "Catherine the Great" "Ivan the Terrible" "Bloody Mary", there was even one in Russia known as "Dmitry the Terrible Eyes!" haha!

Because ACTIONS speak louder than words. Deeds define.

Which made me ask myself:  If those who observe me in life were to define me, would their one-word-definition of me be one that I would be pleased with?

I like to think of myself as a thousand different abilities and likes into one person. Jessica the lover of photos. Jessica the good cook. Jessica the creative. Jessica the compassionate. Jessica the good sister. Jessica the giver of gifts. Jessica the loving daughter. Jessica the loyal friend. Jessica the lover of books. Jessica the speaker of Spanish. Jessica the wife of Van. Jessica the Adventurous. Jessica the Christian.

Always, always, always positive. We see ourselves positively. My Mom use to quote to me regularly a proverb, "A man's ways are right in his own eyes." And so they are.

So although I see myself as these (positive) things, do others? Or do they see me as Jessica the stressed out. Jessica the drama queen. Jessica the difficult. Jessica the stubborn. Jessica the gossip. Jessica who lacks patience. Jessica the arrogant. Jessica the smart alec. Jessica the condenscending.

I hope not!  But, yet I know I have been guilty of every single negative thing written above. And that makes me think: perhaps I should make a second new years resolution: (My first is to floss more) "TO LIVE INTENTIONALLY". To make my positives outshine my negatives. To live so that the qualities I value most will be visible not only to myself but to others as well.

If you were a great King or Queen, and others were going to write a wikipedia page about you and define you... what would it be? And would YOU be pleased with it?