"And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.
If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are."
— From the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
My dad posted this quote next to our computer and I just got around to reading it last night. This speech turns me on. It makes me want to crack open Shakespeare's cannon, ride a bike to work tomorrow, watch a movie with my parents. Doesn't it seem so easy?
Before I left school I saw a performance out of a girl in my class, that literally made my head spin. She had every ingredient I have ever attributed to a great performance. She pulled off an emotional state in a way that was so tactfully spun, and truthfully filled, that I felt leagues away from her. I wondered how I ended up in the same place, in this program, when I'm still working on alexanderizing my spine, and pronouncing "men" and "send" in proper Standard American. And then, unlike all other times in which I have self-deprecating thoughts... I dug myself out.
I was ok.
I was more than ok.
I was good.
I am good...really good, at doing what I do.
Working hard has earned me the indulgence of recognizing this.
All we have to do, is do what we are doing the best we can. Whether being the best daughter to my mother I can be, the healthiest woman I can be, the best actress I can be . I don't need to be the tree at the top of the mountain... There may be a time that I am... but for now I can be the raspberry bush hidden on the slope, with the beautiful view of the river. As long as I try my darnedest to bear fruit.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.
If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are."
— From the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
My dad posted this quote next to our computer and I just got around to reading it last night. This speech turns me on. It makes me want to crack open Shakespeare's cannon, ride a bike to work tomorrow, watch a movie with my parents. Doesn't it seem so easy?
Before I left school I saw a performance out of a girl in my class, that literally made my head spin. She had every ingredient I have ever attributed to a great performance. She pulled off an emotional state in a way that was so tactfully spun, and truthfully filled, that I felt leagues away from her. I wondered how I ended up in the same place, in this program, when I'm still working on alexanderizing my spine, and pronouncing "men" and "send" in proper Standard American. And then, unlike all other times in which I have self-deprecating thoughts... I dug myself out.
I was ok.
I was more than ok.
I was good.
I am good...really good, at doing what I do.
Working hard has earned me the indulgence of recognizing this.
All we have to do, is do what we are doing the best we can. Whether being the best daughter to my mother I can be, the healthiest woman I can be, the best actress I can be . I don't need to be the tree at the top of the mountain... There may be a time that I am... but for now I can be the raspberry bush hidden on the slope, with the beautiful view of the river. As long as I try my darnedest to bear fruit.
