Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure

The title is a Bill Clinton quote. I'm no politician, but I do follow political events more out of morbid fascination than anything else. The claims some policticians make are almost laughable, but occasionally one will speak publicly from a place that contains belief and passion and it occurs to me that not every politician is corrupt, if they were nothing would get done, just perhaps there are a great deal of people out there actually following a desire to do something to benefit someone other than themselves. I can't change the world and have no intention of trying - what I have discovered though is that if I can make life a little bit shinier for people around me, they pass on that shininess. Nice idea eh? Except one thing - people have to be open to accepting that shininess. And you know what? That's not up to me. My responsibility ends with producing the shine and accepting (or not) the affection given to me by the people who chose to.

DH and I sat up til the wee hours talking last night. This stemmed from a conversation about his insecurities which in terms of body image rival mine. We spent ages talking through why it is that we have worked so hard to ingrain this almost dismorphic idea of how we look. He is assured of his self worth intellectually, but finds massive fault in the shape of his torso. To this end he feels the need to spent much time working out this issue at the gym (quite literally). The point I'm trying to make here is that he has a body shape and that most of this issue is actually in his head. But should it change? Should we try to change this? From my perspective the photo here is as visual as we're going to get with my figure. DH likes this photo, but what I see here is all the bits I hate about the reverse of me, and don't get me started on the front.... But should we change? Perhaps this self doubt is actually a positive thing. Maybe the awareness of averageness grounds us, prevents us from becoming to self assured and reminds us to take a good hard look at ourselves before we criticize others. It's humbling to remember there are many people out there just as worthy of praise or more so out there. So surely I hear you say, this should make us more tolerant of others. Maybe, I agree that people should be free to live their lives as they wish if they cause no harm, however my personal intolerance for people stems from my desire for lack of involvement. Let others live as they wish and leave me in peace. People may do things that I ethically disagree with, but who says my way is the right way? For me it is. If my conscience is clear, then for me it works. For someone else, my way of life may seem ethically wrong and they are entitled to think that. Opinion is just that, not fact, but a personal thought process. It's only a majority view that makes something wrong as 'fact'. In the end every action must boil down to our own conscience.

So if I need to quantify where my self worth lies, how would I do that? Easy. Over the past 5 years a few instances of proof that I am able have cropped up.

The picture on the left is DH and thing1 - DH should take most of the credit for this one. He was far more maternal than I at this point, but despite people questioning our ability to effectively look after ourselves let alone another living creature, this tiny little blotchy squidge of a thing has turned into a scarily intelligent little person who astounds me daily. She turns 4 in under 2 weeks and the most important thing is that not only has she managed to survive us as parents but she's a happy and confident child. We're doing the job we wanted to do - that is to keep our issues to ourselves and not pass them on down the line (hopefully).

And after midget1 arrived, DH and I actually got married. In all honestly I'd wanted to since we met, and the whole thing was blubbery and emotional. He cried all the way through our vows and the whole thing was a dream - except that afterwards things were just better. Not because we had a piece of paper and a few photographs, but because we'd made a commitment to each other and knew that we both view marriage in the traditional sense. Once. That's it. I'll accept that there are many people you can connect with, even that there is more than one soul mate out there - I'm pretty sure of that, but when you choose to marry someone it's for life. DH and I chose to love and support each other permanently whatever that entails.

After the wedding thing2 arrived with surprising haste. This was the first image I saw of her. In fact for a couple of days this is the only image I had of her. She was a scary baby with her not breathing thing. But she revived my maternal instinct and from the minute we were allowed near each other we bonded. DH had a few more issues doing this, later on he admitted it was because he was terrified that she'd slip away. Instead she has stayed small, but makes up for it in lung capacity! She's healthy and happy (and angry.. but meh she's 2) and we were responsible for that.

Now we can be proud of these mini victories, but does that make us different from anyone else? No, actually. Tonnes of people do the self same thing on a daily basis. We're not unusual. And ok the kids are average, but to us they are the most special people on the planet. There are a few others who describe themselves as distinctly average - I think perhaps my long and prattling point is that in the grand scheme of things, maybe they do phase into the crowd, maybe their insecurities serve to ground them, maybe to the world at large they make little difference, but to me they shine like the most beautiful stars.