I am speaking to the youth tonight on what it means to be a human being. That is a rather big topic so I am bringing it down to a simple question, “what does it mean to be me?”. Maybe a simple question but one that is hard to answer. I think I have escaped into other people’s description of me to not face the question of what defines me. And I have often not heard the voice of Jesus that says, “you are so much more!”.

You know I love the Instagram page “The Depression Chronicles”. It often has ideas that I very much identify with and that help me with my balance. I have extremely vivid dreams – not so much recently – and I overthink. But is overthinking bad? Yes, when it runs around in circles. But it also allows me to analyse, organise, see the problem from any different angles, and engage an idea on a much deeper level.

Overthinking is not bad! Overthinking something that I cannot fix or that is outside of my control is not helpful to me or to others. The gifts that come with it are to be celebrated. My job is to see when my overthinking is negative for me versus when I am using it in a positive way.

I have found that people use words to describe me and I simply accept their view of me. Between their description and my defining myself is a choice – do I accept their view of me? Do I accept that what they say is negative is, in fact, negative? Being me is not a “cooking cutter”.

Anyone that is what I am thinking of saying to the youth tonight.