DON'T WHITTLE YOURSELF AWAY

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I thought that I had lost Mr. Quote Man (and worried a bit there) for there weren't any quotes in my inbox for some weeks. But this morning I got one from him with a brief explanation that he had just recovered from the sick bed. Not serious but enough to get him resting as advised by his doctor.
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Now the quote...... "He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away." --Raymond Hull (1919–1985) - Canadian playwright, television screenwriter, lecturer, and author.
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Unquote.
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Does this strike you as something familiar? But before we come to that.... In a popular sense, trim would be something like trimming a bush, a hedge, or a small tree in trying to remove run-away branches or leaves which are considered unnecessary or not helpful or useless to the overall aesthetic appearance or value. It's almost the same in the human world at the work place where companies retire or fire people they consider unproductive or liabilities to the grander common objective or goal. Sad but true.
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When I was in my early teens, I remember being so insecure that I would give my allowance (a pittance compared to that of my best friend who seemed to receive a fortune from her dad everyday) ... to whoever could make me the big superstar on the school campus. But none volunteered for the job as they too were being busy trying to be one themselves. Well, high-school is just the perfect setting for the battle of insecurities from one teen to another in every time or clime.
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Hilda (not her real name) was your ordinary teenager but a notch different from the rest... in a strange kind of way. We sat in the same class so I practically had her under my microscopic sight wherever-whatever. At one time she acted like a bitch because her gang of cool chicks acted like one. Then again when she hung out with a bunch of nerds she practically borrowed books from the school library but which she never really read but held in her arms as she chatted with the nerdy bunch. When in the company of boisterous rowdy school mates she talked and laughed the loudest. She was everything you wanted her to be it seemed.
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You think that's being adaptable? Naah... she looked more like peeling off parts of herself to fit into the group she was wanting to belong to. Whether she was peeling off much or too little isn't the whole point of the story. What she was doing was trimming herself too much just to fit in or be accepted until nothing was seen left of the original to thrive, nurture, or survive. She was shaking off values which started off her young human life and throwing away the potential to be someone worthy of life. She embraced the superficial thinking that it would lead her to better things and better times. But did it or does it? She was many persons other than Hilda.
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But it's not just teenagers who do that; adults do it too. And I have learned from life that if you really need to trim out anything .... just make sure it's something you are better off without permanently. That it's loss should not diminish you but rather would transform you into your best potential. By Divine design.
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Have a great week, folks! Be blessed. Stay blessed.