What's Your Opinion Of Yourself, Or Do You Even Have One?

I was listening to some music from my past last night, it was Styx and the song was "I'm OK" off of the Pieces of Eight album. It brought back a lot of memories, but the strongest one and where I'm going with my thought this morning is that I have been my own person for as long as I can remember, and have really not been too concerned with what other people thought of me. Now that's not to say that for many years I haven't been out to get validation for the things that I've done in my life, I have, more often than not too much so, but as far as following fashion trends, or the latest thing that the masses chase after, that I've never done and have really encouraged my kids to stay away from as well.

So as I was getting another cup of coffee this morning, the thought crossed my mind, "What's your opinion of yourself, or do you even have one?" So many people if they even have an opinion of themselves it is a poor one. They choose, or maybe have been programmed to see the negative attributes of themselves in themselves and not the positive ones. Some people will say, "Yeah, but if I say good things about myself people will just say that I'm arrogant." Thinking good things about yourself is not arrogant at all.

God said in the Bible that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalms 139:14) We are not all the same, we are as unique as each and every snowflake that falls to the ground in winter. This world wants to fit us into a certain mold. Oh you were born here, so you have to act this way, or everyone wears their hair this way, so you've got to do that as well. I think we need to set the trends, not follow them blindly.

I heard a story about a young man that went to get a hair cut, and the barber by accident cut a large strip of hair out of the side of his head, leaving his scalp bare and showing. There was nothing that could be done short of shaving his head and the boy wouldn't have that and just decided to take the ribbing at school from his friends and let his hair grow back out. The next day at school there wasn't much said about his hair, and life for him went on as usual. A few days later, he started to notice that many of the boys in his school were now sporting the same haircut as him, as people thought it was a new style and began to copy it.

Now while that is funny, it also shows how insecure people are, those other boys went and had their hair cut in what the first boy thought was a horrible way just because they wanted to be cool and thought that it was a new trend in haircuts. People have been falling victim to peer pressure for eons, and there is no sign of it stopping anytime soon. And if you are an adult reading this and you are thinking well those kids these days, peer pressure isn't just for kids, it happens with adults as well.

How about at work, do you follow the crowd or are you your own person? Do you coast along doing just enough to get noticed by the boss, but not as to appear to be brown nosing? Are you doing the absolute best job for your employer, or do you stay with the pack? I heard a minister the other day say that when he was in high school playing football, that one day the players were all running and he was out ahead of the pack, when one of his teammates yelled for him to slow up and run with the rest, that he was making them look bad. That's funny that this guy thought the one giving his all was making them look bad, when in actuality the guys that weren't giving their all were making themselves look bad.

Having a good opinion of yourself is not a bad thing, and doing the best that you can actually do in a job, on a team or at school doesn't make you a loser, it shows that you are who you are supposed to be, and doing what God expects from each and every one of us, to be originals. Don't worry about the pack that is behind you, get out in front and be the leader that you are called to be. Just don't worry about what others think of you, they really aren't going to help you, just hinder you and that's for sure. So just like the song says, "Cause I believed them when they said I must do things their way, they tried to cast me in their mold, but I just had to say, that I'm O.K. I'm O.K. this way yes I'm O.K." I've embedded a YouTube video of the song below if you've never heard it. Funny how something that I listened to 30 years ago can be applied to my life today...strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!