I recall an incident my fourteen-year-old freshman daughter recounted to me one afternoon after returning home from school.  She had chosen to sit next to a young, middle-school girl on the bus ride home and had struck up a conversation with her.  An upper classman got on the bus a few minutes later and noticed them.  As he passed the two, he looked at my daughter and snickered, “Why would you sit next to that little kid?”  Like it should be beneath her to sit with someone so much younger than her.

“Why shouldn’t I?” my daughter questioned.

“Do you try to be a loser?” he shot over his shoulder as he made his way down the aisle.

“Just because she’s younger doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy talking with her,” my daughter returned.

The twelve-year old looked at my daughter, her voice a mix of awe and disbelief.  “How do you dare stand up to him?!  How do you do that?!”

My daughter smiled at her and said, “Easy.  What he thinks of me doesn’t make me who I am.”

Now it was my turn to look at her with awe and disbelief!  How could she have understood this at such an early age?!  I was at least twice her age before I started to realize that what other people thought of me did NOT define me.  Heck! At the time of this incident, truth be told, I was still struggling with it.  And here was my fourteen-year-old daughter not only in full grasp of this truth but clearly living it.  I’ve often wondered if this conversation might have been a pivotal moment in the younger girl’s perception as well.  To say I was proud of my daughter would minimize the extent of all that I was feeling.

I’ve thought of this many times since then. When we can release the need of the good opinion of others, it frees us to be more of what we’re capable of being.  We remove roadblocks that restrict us from being a more authentic version of ourselves. I am grateful to my daughter for her powerful words of wisdom and the strength of her example that continue to ring true in my heart!

~Zanne

InSearchOfAuthenticity.com

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