It's a jungle out there

     So I tend to do some of my best thinking and reflecting in the shower.  I feel that after my morning coffee and hot shower.... it's all downhill from there.  Not really.  But I love my morning routine.  Innately in my younger years I would sleep until 10am and stay awake until 2-3am.  I never had the luxury of living my diurnal-nocturnal lifestyle.  Now my early mornings are treasured as the peaceful "my time" of the day.

     Reflecting this morning I thought about how I seemed to always relate to the chameleon.  Throughout my life I stayed very diverse and flexible.  In college my focus, unfortunately, was to play collegiate basketball.  Oh yah, and get an education.  In that order.  It boiled down to my choice of a full ride academic scholarship to UNLV with a major in Hotel Management and red shirt my first year on a Division I team  OR  a full ride athletic/academic to a private college CBU and  be back up point guard right away, on a potential championship team.  Well that was a no brainer.  And being the Chameleon that I was, I could blend and excel at either place I was certain.

     I believe it wasn't a case of arrested development, but more so a case of a shiny mirror.  What you see, is what you want to see.  If I was out dancing at a night club, I fit in.  If I was sitting in a church pew, I fit in.  If I was leading a fast break in a playoff game, I fit in.  If I was a park ranger at Lake Tahoe, I fit in.  If  I was at a fundraising benefit dinner wearing a sequin dress, I fit in.  If I was horsepacking in the Teton Wilderness, I fit in.  If I was playing beer pong, I fit in.  If I was doing a rectal exam on a cow...... well let's not go there.

     I am happy that I am at a point in my own evolution that I am not so worried about blending in or what other people think so much anymore.  With a few wrinkles and a few grey hairs (we are sticking with only a few) I am more concerned about living fully and truly.  Not that I ever  REALLY worried too much about what others thought, but maybe more on the perception of my character.  Carrying the heavy anvil of my "perfection" goal, became insanely heavy to my soul in my overworked/overwrought middle years. Mortality issues trumped perception issues, and it just didn't matter anymore.  I think one day, I just hung up my Chameleon jacket and started sporting my inner colors.  I like the analogy of choosing Carnelian over Chameleon.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is 

a sphere of activity

in which we are permitted to remain

children all of our lives.

-Albert Einstein

The truth is incontrovertible.

Malice may attack it,

ignorance may deride it,

but in the end,

there it is.

-Winston Churchill

This above all:

To thine own self be true, 

and it must follow, 

as the night the day.

Thou canst not then

be false to any man.

-Hamlet, Shakespeare 

Our life is what our thoughts 

make it.

-Marcus Aurelius
(Notice, no Dr. Theodor Seuss quotes)