What is real...

This week has been a week for much reflection in my life. I have thought about addictions, sacrifice, love, and choices and how all of these things affect ourselves and those around us. Now before you go calling my bishop :) let me just say that addictions don't have to be drugs, or alcohol, they can be anything that keeps us from doing the things that we should, the things that keep us from accomplishing our goals. I, myself could name a whole list from A to Z of what I could be doing better, but I just don't have that kind of time and would rather not develop carpal tunnel from one blog entry :) Now with all that being said I came across an excerpt from the children's story "The Velveteen Rabbit" that I felt summed up my feelings about life and who I want to be. Don't you just love children's books? The lessons that they teach are so simple and just make sense, mostly because life's lessons can be solved in such a simple way but as adults we tend to overcomplicate things (human nature). So here it is,

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day..."Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once..." he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."