Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
So often we hear the things that we should be. Should be skinny, should be pretty, should be career-driven, should be happy, should be honest, should be tactful, should be quiet, should be assertive, should be wives, should be moms, should be good. It's nice to let this narrator tell us we don't have to be good, we don't have to do all those things we've been told or all those things we let weigh us down with expectation. Instead we just have to love what we love, do what we do, go where we go. And whatever it is we decide to be, the world is there doing its thing around us, waiting for us to dive in.
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