Be Her

While spending time in New England with my family over the past several weeks, my sister and I often found ourselves driving around in her 4Runner listening to country music on the radio. I’m the bigger country music fan and she’s gracious enough to listen along.

Ella Langley’s latest album, Dandelion, includes her hit, Be Her, and it’s been prominent on the radio these days.

In case you aren’t a country music fan or you’re not familiar with the song, it begins…

“She drinks wine by the glass, not by the bottle...”

From there, the verse paints a picture of a woman who has it all together — steady, content, devoted to her husband, no bad habits to speak of. And then the chorus circles back again and again to one aching refrain: she just wants to be her. Wants it so bad it hurts.

I’m an Ella Langley fan and love the melody of this song, but unfortunately, the lyrics reflect our obsession with comparing our lives to others. It highlights our dissatisfaction with who we are, what we have, and how we’re always craving something else.

We keep thinking that grass is always greener…

What is missing in our lives that makes us desire to be another person, to have their life rather than our own? I mean it’s one thing to want your neighbor’s new car, but to want to be someone else? Why?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote…

I think it’s worth taking another look at the garden. If it’s harvest time and we don’t like the crop, whose fault is it?

What did we plant?

Did we pay attention, weed, water, nurture?

Did we plant the seeds we wanted to see flourish in our lives?

Or, did we buy into the lie that we can have it all?

You know the how it goes…we can work forty hours plus a week, get that promotion, raise happy and healthy kids, have an amazing marriage, vacation in Paris, drive the coolest car, eat the best foods…yada yada yada.

How’s that been working out?

I hate to burst this bubble, but none of us can have it all, not man or woman. There aren’t enough hours in our days, or energy in our bodies to do or have it all.

But that’s exactly what the curated highlight reels, the productivity influencers, and the “5am club” crowd want you to believe is possible, if you just optimize harder, hustle smarter, buy the right planner. It’s smoke and mirrors. Nobody’s actual life looks like their feed.

We only have one life here on earth, there are no do-overs. So, it’s paramount we decide what that life will look like. How we will spend our precious time?

Wanting to “Be Her” might just be a signal worth listening to. It could be telling us that somewhere along the way, we planted seeds someone else handed us, instead of the ones we actually wanted to grow.

I want you to put your phone down, turn off your computer, the TV, or whatever device your hands are currently glued to, and just sit quietly for a while and contemplate what you’d like your life to look like.

I don’t want you to think about the social media influencers or what your friend’s, neighbor’s, or co-worker’s lives looks like, rather what you want YOUR life to look like. Don’t make any comparisons, just explore your desires, what you value, what you need, what makes you happy, what you are passionate about.

Decide what seeds you’d like to plant in your garden.

Now, get to work sowing those seeds!

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When your family gathers for dinner tonight, remember the dinner table is a No Phone Zone! Start a conversation planting the right seeds in your family’s garden. Everyone eats, participates, and listens to each other’s stories.