This will be short, hopefully. Sheryl Crow, when talking about some of the tough times in her life said that she allows her life’s challenges to refine her and not define her.
Wow.
Refine. Not define. That, to me, was quite strong.
While I know the definitions of these words, and I’m sure you do as well - when I read them again, it amplified the message within all over again, hopefully something new will be illuminated for you as well.
refine: |riˈfīn|
To improve (something) by making small changes...
define: |diˈfīn|
To make up or establish the character of...
Kanye. We all know what he did and how dumb it was. But the next night when he appeared on The Jay Leno Show, he seemed to be profoundly taken when Leno asked, ‘What would your mother say if she were here?’ He said that he’d not paused and dealt with his mother’s passing and the pain that surrounded that, and essentially his VMA stunt was the boiling over of all of those emotions.
This “teachable moment” has the opportunity to be his refining or defining moment.
I can think of a thousand times when I went through a tough time and felt like the problem staring me down, and whether or not I survived it, would be my legacy. But every time I look back at whatever it was I see that it was something that taught me for tomorrow, not something that finished me for good; it’s all a PART of my legacy, but a sentence, maybe two.
Whatever you’ve been through, or are dealing with now even now, don’t forget - it’s not the trial that matters, but the verdict. None of it defines you.
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