I’ve spent a great deal of my life trying to change. Feeling like I was medium rare and not well done. Now, after five decades I’m finally the person I want to be.

Have I changed? Yes, in some ways. Many of my fears have melted away and I’m finally able to enjoy “me,” to like “me,” to accept “me.” And therefore I have come to like “you,” accept “you,” and like “you.” Life doesn’t feel like a constant threat either. I can live with uncertainty and this is liberating.

However, what has changed is not so much myself but how I perceive life. In doing so, everything about me has changed. I see life through a more forgiving lens, which has allowed me to not want to change those things I viewed as weaknesses and I hated about myself.

I’ve often been told that I’m too nice, and this I perceived as a weakness, but not anymore. I may get the short end of the stick sometimes, but I can certainly sleep at night knowing that I was genuine.

I’m done trying to change that which is my nature. It’s time to just “be me.”