You Measure Up Lady Gaga

Man it can be such a cycle to compare ourselves to others.

Take the blog world for example. I could be up all night long looking and sifting through other blogs that are a million times more appealing and "better" than my 2 humble blogs.
I mean honestly, I could say I am not creative, I am not unique, I am not smart, I don't have good ideas, I don't have enough followers and I may as well quit both blogs.

I find myself in this trap more often than I'd like to admit. Don't you?
(You might not be able to relate to the blog world, but is it something else?)

There are countless ways we could measure ourselves against others and always
find ourselves not making the mark. But what IS the mark?

I watched a Lady gaga video the other day, and in this video (it's her backstage doing a costume change taking a little break)-she thinks she's a loser. She honestly feels like a loser and that she isn't good enough; yet she's in front of thousands of people at Madison Square Garden!

The point here is that she could be performing in front of thousands like she was at the Garden, or she could be performing in the Subway system in NYC in front of a few--but it wouldn't make a difference how she feels inside. Lady gaga is trying to get her worth from how well she does in the world and by what she has accomplished and how many people she's in front of.

This can be summed up in one simple way for me, something my Pastor taught me: Being known by NAME.

I used to tell my Pastor that I had such issues with wanting to be "known" and that I felt I was no good if I wasn't. I know now that that comes from not being heard or understood as a child or teen, so it continued in these nooks and crannies in my adult life, like not feeling good enough if my blog isn't rockin, or if I don't have a certain number of followers.

My Pastor assured me that whether I'm known by name or not in the world is insignificant. He reminded me that I am known by name by God. That I was put on earth for my OWN unique gifts and talents. And if I bring those into the world with all my might, then I am living. I am not living better if I am known, or if I don't have guitar skills or the ability to savvy myself through the internet like some. It's OK. I'm OK if that is the reality. My reality is based on what I CAN bring and what I DO bring and more importantly WHO I am.

I need to focus on those truths, not others talents or where I fall short. That is a trap, and awful cycle. If I focus on the beauty I can bring, then I will make beauty.

Being known by name doesn't make me Gina. I already AM Gina.

I can have messy closets at some point, I can have areas of my house that aren't as organized as others' and I can even not cook as much as I do and I'd still be OK. I'd still be good enough. Because we all fall short and struggle somewhere (even Lady gaga which), so there is no sense in trying to measure up or compare.

As long as I keep measuring myself against others' creativity or rank in this world, I'm going to drown.

I measure up to ME. Who I was made to be. Not who the other person with the cool blog is.
Not who the one who graduated from Harvard is. Not the one who can speak 5 different languages is.

We all bring something into this world, on all different scales. If we can learn to focus on what we can work with within ourselves and what we are given or what we already have--we could do so much, and we can put ourselves under the umbrella of our own uniqueness.

We have to embrace what we have, and who we are. Sure it's natural to feel like we don't measure up sometimes, but it's important to make the choice to get away from that way of thinking, and get back on track to knowing that we are each unique and bring something into this world and its people that no one else can.

When you start to compare yourself to others and wonder if you measure up remember that they are probably doing the exact same thing to themselves too.

Find your beauty that lies within, and go with it. Bring it.