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In my last post, Bring Back That Lovin’ Feeling, I wrote, “Gratitude is the gateway drug to happiness.” I didn’t think I was the first person to have this thought, however, I had NO IDEA I had read it before and had so thoroughly incorporated it into my beliefs, I thought it was mine.
A few days ago, I found a page I had saved from Jen Sincero’s YOU are a BADASS one-a-day calendar. GRATITUDE: THE GATEWAY DRUG TO AWESOMENESS.
I was mortified. I totally plagiarized Jen Sincero and gave her no credit. I made a plan to write a post about my error, but that didn’t make me feel much better. After giving it some thought, I realized the reason I was so upset with myself was because in the past I have dished out tons of silent judgement around this subject. Whenever someone took credit for a quote that clearly came from someone else, I would get all bent out of shape. If someone wrote something trite as if it were the first time it had ever been uttered, my eye rolling was out of control.
As I considered this, I looked at the current day’s BADASS calendar page: LOOK AT IT FROM ALL ANGLES.
Coincidence? Posts I have written flooded back to me… View From Above & Where There’s Smoke. If you judge another’s actions, you assume you know their perspective. And I don’t. Maybe that person thinks what they wrote is totally new because it’s new to them. Maybe that person has never heard the passage they are quoting. Maybe (like me) that person has no clue the idea came from somewhere else. And of course we all know, there really is nothing new under the sun.
The Universe held up a mirror for me. I think I had created an exception category for “literary judgement,” as if it weren’t really judgement. Absurd. What place does judgment have anywhere? We all do our best. We are imperfectly perfect.
Thank you, Jen Sincero (You Are A Badass) for your words of inspiration. I have read them so many times, they have become my own.
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