It's taken me a lifetime (so far) to realise that we too often let other people shape us, let their actions define how we react or respond and too often try to rise to their expectations and beliefs rather than our own. We seek favour and approval and we compromise for that reason and then we suddenly notice we're doing it more than we should... that, personally or professionally, we're suddenly being a passenger in others' lives and not a driver in our own.

There are days and weeks when I am just too damned tired to keep justifying myself to others, tired of apologising without context, tired of holding a buck that was hurled in my direction and which I caught out of politeness not neccessity, tired of treading softly when I should be walking tall, tired of putting in 110% and getting nothing but ambivalence, tired of being the one forced to compromise when others refuse even the merest helpful shuffle.

Times like this are when you truly appreciate the people in your life who love you not for your perfections (and even I have less than I once did!) but as much because of your foibles...and prove it in either the simplest words, their gestures of thanks or merely their continued presence in your world. If I don't tell them enough how much I appreciate that, then I'm doing it here.

Life is all about learning through experience and turbulence, time and distance, whose opinions matter to you and whose don't or shouldn't.