Take a moment to listen to how you talk to yourself. Are your words your own? Or are they pieces of other people's? I think your self-talk might be the most important words you say. How you treat yourself is the driving force behind everything you decide to do. How you view yourself is the driving force behind how you view other people. Do you want your view of yourself to be someone else's or your own?

You decide.

I just finished reading Amy Schumer's book, "The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo." It was the first book that caught my eye at the local bookstore and I did not expect to like it. However, it now falls into the top five best books I've ever read. Schumer is fearlessly herself:

“I know my worth. I embrace my power. I say if I'm beautiful. I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story. I will. I'll speak and share and fuck and love, and I will never apologize for it. I am amazing for you, not because of you. I am not who I sleep with. I am not my weight. I am not my mother. I am myself. And I am all of you.”

Not only does Schumer live fearlessly as herself, she embraces the different parts of herself that aren't always understood by the outside world:

“Ironically, the tattoo represents the opposite for me today. It reminds me that it's important to let yourself be vulnerable, to lose control and make a mistake. It reminds me that, as Whitman would say, I contain multitudes and I always will. I'm a level-one introvert who headlined Madison Square Garden—and was the first woman comic to do so. I'm the ‘overnight success’ who's worked her ass off every single waking moment for more than a decade. I used to shoplift the kind of clothing that people now request I wear to give them free publicity. I'm the SLUT or SKANK who's only had one one-night stand. I'm a ‘plus-size’ 6 on a good day, and a medium-size 10 on an even better day."

She reminds readers that it's okay to change. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to have different sides to your one self. It's okay to love those different sides of yourself.

I think that I randomly picked up this book for a reason. It was exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it. For too long I've let other people decide what I could and could not do. I've let other people's expectations of me rule decisions that I make. I've feared being different. I've feared breaking down norms. I've feared taking the road less traveled, yet I always do. I choose where I am meant to be and what I am meant to do. I choose the people I love. I decide who I am. I like to think we are small pieces of the puzzle that have so much power to implement change and improvement in our little messed up world. Only when you accept who you are and what you are meant to be will you truly make a difference in this world.