Why not you?

​Sometimes it's the questions we ask ourselves that focus our attention on places that either hold our souls back or set our souls on fire.

One question that is easy to get stuck asking ourselves is "why me"?

Why me. Why am I in this pain? Why am I suffering this hardship?

Surely I don't deserve it.

Why me often centers the conversations we have with ourselves on a pain that won't go away and on a search for someone to blame for it. But it's often another question that can actually make the pain go away.

Or at least begin to buffer us from it.

And that is, why NOT me?

Why NOT me points us to the world we desire, to the successes we've imagined or seen others experience, to the joy we long to keep in place of a pain that won't go away, and it forces us to face a hard answer: while we're busy wrestling with a pain we don't think we deserve, we're not chasing a future we are more than ready to serve.

Why not me forces us to acknowledge that while we're looking for someone to blame for our pain, we are the one most to blame for not taking steps toward all that we stand to gain.

It's easy to get stuck in a pattern of always acknowledging the pain, of always looking for someone to blame for it, to the point that one of the hardest things to do becomes stepping out of the pain and into the dreams that are starting to look more and more out of reach.

Before it gets too far out of reach, ask why not me?

Before it gets too far out of reach, look at your future full of hope and dreams and opportunities, and ask, why not me?

And answer.

Honestly.

Acknowledge I'm not there yet because I haven't stepped into there yet. I've spent so much time back here wrestling with this pain and blame that I've lost sight of the truth that there is still plenty to gain from this life.

When we realize the answer to why not me is ME, that is empowering.

Like, Super Power empowering.

When we realize the answer to the question why not me is because we've spent way too much time trying to answer the absolutely unanswerable question: why me - that is liberating.

So ask the question, why not me?

And when you realize the answer is you, don't beat yourself up for it, just go ahead and take that first step. Take that first step and start discovering that we are always putting something more out of reach, either our pain or our future.

That largely depends on the questions you ask yourself.

So, why not you?

It's your future and I believe in you. There is no one to blame for not arriving there yet, only someone to grab hold of it.

So, why not you?