A GOAL OF LIVING
I am me.
In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. There are persons who have some parts like me, but no one adds up exactly like me. I have some parts like others but I don’t add up to be exactly like anyone else. Therefore, everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone chose it.
I own everything about me — my body, including everything it does; my mind, including all its thoughts & ideas; my eyes, including the image of all my eyes behold; my feelings, whatever they may be — anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointment, excitement; my mouth & all that comes out of it…. words, polite, sweet, or rough…. correct & incorrect; my voice, loud or soft; & all my actions, whether they be to others or myself.
I own all my triumphs & successes, all my failures & mistakes. I own all my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.
Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. Being very well acquainted with me, I can love me & be friendly with me in all my parts.
In being well-acquainted with myself, loving myself, & being friendly with myself, I can then make it possible for all of me to work in my best interests.
I know that there are aspects about myself I do not know, & there are parts of me that puzzle me.
As long as I am friendly & loving to myself, I can courageously & hopefully look for the solution to the puzzles & continually look for ways to find out more about me — how I look & sound, what I say & do, & how I think & feel.
No one else looks & sounds, says & does, & thinks & feels exactly like me.
However I look & sound, whatever I say & do, & whatever I think & feel at a given moment is me. It is authentic & represents where I am at that moment in time.
When I review later how I looked & sounded, what I said & did, & how I thought & felt, parts may turn out to be unfitting & I can discard that which is unfitting & keep that which proved fitting & learn something new for that which I discarded.
I am me & I am okay.
I own me & therefore I can engineer me.
I can learn all the new things that I need & discard all the things that no longer fit.
I can see, hear, feel, think, say, & do. I will then have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, & to make sense & order out of the world of people & things outside of me.
Virginia M. Satir