I love eating salad out of this big blue bowl.

It was a GO! GO! GO! kind of day, one of those days that I was very appreciative of the stock pile of greens prepped and ready to go because it made a green lunch really easy.

My salad might not be very pretty, and it certainly wasn’t anything new or exciting.  So let’s dig for a deeper message in the bottom of that salad bowl today. Like a fortune cook or one of those thought provoking messages on a Yogi tea bag.  Except we’re going to read lettuce leaves instead of tea leaves.

Here’s what my spinach leaves said today:

All those people you’re afraid to offend spend a lot of time feeling offended already.

I didn’t come up with that, and I didn’t read it in a fortune cookie either. It was some random comment on a random website that I was lucky enough to read. “Lucky” because I think about that line a lot (and I easily could have missed it.)

I think about this sentence every time I find myself feeling overly concerned with what other people might be thinking about me – it’s my reminder to NOT worry about it, and is why you shouldn’t worry about what other people think about you either.

The people that are annoyed at, offended by or judge the things that you do?  Well, they probably spend a lot of time feeling that way about all sorts of things and people. Suddenly it’s easier to see that the problem is less about YOU and more about THEM.

I’m sort of flying without a net here with these Greener March Challenge posts this month. Sometimes I have time to put a lot of thought into a post or plan something out, and some days (like today) I don’t.

I want to post every day during the month March because I want to show what eating greens (or just eating better in general) might look like – some days it’s pretty, some days it’s not. I could get down on myself and worry that not every post is perfect or funny or clever.  What will people think?  Or, I could NOT worry about it and just keep going. I’m learning along the way here, about planning ahead, about managing my time, what works and what doesn’t – but these lessons will be lost if I don’t keep going.

And that’s exactly the point. Eating well, taking care of yourself and making better choices isn’t always perfect or sunny, but you just keep going anyway.  Or even if “eating greens” isn’t the thing that you’re working on right now – WHATEVER it might be that you’re trying to do for yourself – if you worry about what other people think and let that fear hold you back from doing the important work you need to do – you could miss out on some great opportunities for learning and personal growth.

Be yourself, do your thang.  All those people you’re afraid to offend probably spend a lot of time feeling offended already.  Don’t let it hold you back.