Thought For Today

I don't know if I continue,

even today,

always liking myself.

But what I learned to do many years ago

was to forgive myself.

It is very important for every human being

to forgive herself or himself

because if you live,

you will make mistakes

- it is inevitable.

But once you do

and you see the mistake,

then you forgive yourself

and say,

'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,'

that's all.

So you say to people who you think you may

have injured,

'I'm sorry,'

and then you say to yourself,

'I'm sorry.'

If we all hold on to the mistake,

we can't see our own glory

in the mirror

because we have the mistake between our faces

and the mirror;

we can't see what we're capable of being.

You can ask forgiveness of others,

but in the end

the real forgiveness

is in one's own self.

I think that young men

and women

are so caught by the way they see themselves.

Now mind you.

When a larger society sees them as unattractive,

as threats,

as too black

or too white

or too poor

or too fat

or too thin

or too sexual

or too asexual,

that's rough.

But you can overcome that.

The real difficulty is to overcome

how you think about yourself.

If we don't have that we never grow,

we never learn,

and sure as hell

we should never teach.”

~Maya Angelou~