Be who you are.

Insecurities. We all have them. Growing up, we wonder are we pretty enough, smart enough, wearing the right clothes, making the best grades.

Then after college we go out into the real world with a new found confidence.  We  go to our first real business meeting and the insecurity creeps in again. “Should I ask a question or should I just stay quiet? What if they ask me a question and I won’t know the answer? Did they just assign me a task to do?”

As an engineer in the offshore oil industry, I sometimes found myself being the only female sitting in a room full of men.  “What if they think I’m a fraud posing as an engineer?  What if they ask me a question that I should know the answer to and I don’t?” Great, keeping piling on the insecurities to the list.

Then, as if the universe wanted to tell me a message, I found this quote and it became my mantra that I would remind myself daily and write in the margins of my notebooks:

Be who you are and say what you think

Because those who matter don’t mind

And those who mind don’t matter.

– Dr. Seuss

That quote served me well to quiet the insecurities while in industry – then I became a mom and the insecurities changed shape once again.

Am I being the best mom to my daughter? Am I doing enough tummy time? Should she already be walking? Does she have enough friends?  Should I work full-time or stay at home? Will she be proud of me? Does she want to grow up and be like me? Do I even want her to grow up to be like me?!

Now as she grows up, I certainly don’t want her to have those insecurities like me. I want her to be confident and happy and to speak her mind.  I want her to laugh and not take herself too seriously. I want her to be curious, to explore the world, and I want to lead her there.

So I say my Dr. Seuss mantra and we try experiments together and ask questions about how the world works. And of course I don’t know all the answers, the experiments don’t always work, my voice starts to crack a little and then I remember….

Be who you are… so I laugh and tell her I don’t know all the answers but we’ll find out together.

I hope she remembers this quote and uses it throughout life because life won’t always work out the way she’ll plan it to be but she should always stay true to herself… my yellow flower among all the other red ones. And I want her to remember her family and special friends will always be the ones that matter in life and we’ll laugh with her through her ups and downs while she navigates her own path to figuring out the world.