Soft

"Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. 

Do not let the pain make you hate. 

Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. 

Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, 

you still believe it to be a beautiful place."

I've pondered on this quote a lot this past weekend. I repinned it from a friend on Pinterest, and I find it right up the alley with where I am trying to go in my life. 


Very few people, if anyone, that I am well aquainted with, would describe me as a "soft" person. I am highly opinionated (and rarely choose to withhold those opinions), I am judgmental, and I am a bit hardened to feelings and emotions (beit mine own or those of others). For whatever reasons - and I will partially blame life's experiences (though I know I shouldn't...), I come off as a bit of a "tough cookie." To be perfectly honest, I've been proud of that for a long time. Part of those personality traits make me a hard worker, a go getter, and a girl who can actually stand going to a public restroom by herself. I'm quite the independent, and I do what I want when I want to do it. Don't mess with me. 


The question is, though, is that how I WANT to be seen? Is that how I WANT others to perceive me? AND, most importantly, is that who I REALLY am? I look at the women whom I admire and aspire to be like, and none of them are *those kind* of women. 


Hmmmm. 


Pondering on this subject reminded me of another quote that I'd heard and read in several different places: 


Margaret D. Nadauld, Young Women General President: “The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity” (“The Joy of Womanhood,” Ensign, Nov. 2000, 15).


Tender. Kind. Refined. Faith. Goodness. Those are qualities I want; the ones I want to be seen. The strange thing is that oft times, those qualities are, by worldly standards, considered "weak" - and being perceived as WEAK absolutely mortifies me. Therein lies the dilemma. 


I must retrain my thoughts. 


Written word to further inspire me - Proverbs 31:10-31 . And a talk- Charity Never Faileth, given by President Thomas S. Monson during a time in 2010 where cynicism ran quickly through my veins. I'll admit that I haven't quite recovered from the events of that year that plagued - and continue to plague - our family members. Those events, along with other tragedies that I seem to constantly witness from the outside, have toughened me up even more. It's a work in progress, you know, trying to turn the cynicism to actions of tenderness, kindness, and refined behavior. 


I'm working on it all. 


There are those - few and far between - who do see the "soft" side of Amy - I suppose I should give myself credit... Perhaps this whole thought process is just MY form of "nesting."  This little person coming into our lives surely does not deserve to have my rough and tough, cynical nature imposed upon him. 


... I just don't think that it's a GOOD thing when the "person" in my life who sees the "tender me" most often is a furry friend named Gilbert.   ;-)