Your screen is dark and empty but all of a sudden it receives a new notification. Your screen gets filled with light and sparkle, love and warmth. It takes a while to fully open your eyes and see what the notification says. It takes a while to really realize what kind of a magical message it could possibly have for you. After a while, you finally catch your focus and reach the notification: “Your life is your message.”
I obviously didn’t know my life was my message when I was a little boy and jumping on a trampoline trying to reach for the stars. The only thing I knew was how happy it made me feel to jump, look at the sky and see how all kinds of shaped and colorful clouds passed by my eyes. Sometimes they were darker and sometimes brighter. The trampoline and the clouds have proven to be a great metaphor for my life. I knew that the harder I jumped, the brighter it got. That’s all that mattered.
Living in a tiny village in Finland made me face my personal differences at a very early age. Being different than others made me wonder if I should just become exactly like everyone else around me, just lose myself and become a stranger for myself. If I should change myself instead of using my difference to make a difference. All kinds of things were flowing under the surface. I asked lots of questions, which made me a normal kid. Adults answered less, which made them pretty typical adults.
At some point I started to see my passion to be helping other people. Helping others made me see my differences as a gift. That’s also when life stopped to take my happiness away, it started to give it back. It made me feel alive, it made every single difference become important and valuable. Because by standing up and being different I was able to help.
Along the way, life took me to different places, situations and people. Sometimes it removed my loved ones overnight, sometimes made my most brightest dreams come through. There were times when sitting in a roller coaster of life made me overwhelmed by taking more than giving but by being myself, I was able to get through to this day.
Remember that your life is your message to the world. It is time to stop being someone else than yourself. It is time to embrace your beautiful differences that you’ve been given, and start being your true self. That’s when your life can be the best notification of all times, giving you light and sparkle, love and warmth. Jump high so that you can shine bright like you! Let me hear your notifications and messages on social media @anssikristian. Don’t forget to check out my site Shine Bright Like You: http://shinebrightlikeyou.com
