When Will You Declare Your Independence?
Most people in the United States celebrate the 4th of July, but do you know exactly why the holiday is so important to our country? Imagine how you would feel if someone kept telling you what to do all of the time and kept taking more and more of your money. That is how the colonists felt in the years leading up to 1776. Great Britain kept trying to make the colonists follow more rules and pay higher taxes. People started getting mad and began making plans to be able to make their own rules. They no longer wanted Great Britain to be able to tell them what to do, so they decided to tell Great Britain that they were becoming an independent country. (To be independent means to take care of yourself, making your own rules and providing for your own needs.)
With this in mind, take a minute to ask yourself, ‘who is always telling me what to do?”. When I asked myself this question, I found that my family, my so-called friends, my employer, my landlord, and even the media were all bossing me around. Know what else I realized, I WANTED MY INDEPENDENCE!!!!!! Not only did I want it, I RE-CLAIMED it!!! With each day that passes, I take back more and more control of my life. I am now self-employed, I own my home, I minimize my interactions with family and friends. And I have no time for media-hype. These are just a few steps I have taken on my road to Independence. I find myself singing….follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road. These well marked golden bricks will take you closer to your true self and in finding your true self, you will find your independence.
Each year during the celebration of the 4th of July, I take a few minutes to actually READ the Declaration of Independence. I read it not only to educate myself, but to inspire myself as well. I won’t recite the entire document; however, I would like to take an excerpt to share….We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I love this section of the document because it reminds me that it is my God-given right to be happy. That no one is ‘better’ than me, that I have the same opportunities as any one else. It is my birthright.
The document goes on to speak of how Great Britain was ‘abusing’ the United States and how citizens of the U.S. had grown tired of the abuse. Recently, I attended Vicki Irvin’s ‘Aspiring Women Real Estate Investor’s Retreat in Maryland. On the very first day of the retreat, she asked us a series of questions. The questions were about ‘self tolerations. They were simple yet quite profound. I invite you today to answer the questions below. I think you just might find that you are allowing and maybe even enabling more people to abuse you than you would like to acknowledge. The questions are:
1. What am I tolerating?
2. What is frustrating me?
3. Where am I being ordinary?
4. Where am I suffering?
5. Where am I blindly following a routine?
6. What am I avoiding?
7. Where am I stalled, stuck, or stopped?
Several women tearfully shared their answers and their stories. Just answering those questions, caused me to see where family and friends were actually ‘abusing’ me. Once I came to this realization, I vowed to re-gain even more of my independence. I trust that you will ask and answer these questions and that you too will re-claim not only your independence, but your -liciousness as well.
Happy Independence Day,
J-licious
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