Before I left home for this new job, my wife gave me some advice.
“This will be a great chance to recreate yourself,” she said.
Fun-loving Mike? Good.
Goof-off Mike? Not-so-good.
Be gone with you, demon spirits of the orange Tic Tacs. Be healed of the old Mike and bring on Mike 2.0. Make him Peter Brady with his new-and-improved persona.
Now that I am separated temporarily in another timezone, I’m going to do something very daring. I’m going to respectively disagree with her, to a point.
I don’t want to be new with extra cleaning power, I want to be the best person I was designed to be on this Earth. This came from a quote while watching a broadcast on Dell Parsons. It came from a BYU professor and has stuck with me ever since. More or less, it says this:
Be the person you were designed to be.
That means I am a person of divine potential, capable of greatness here on this Earth.
Maybe I won’t change the world as much as visionary Steve Jobs. I won’t be known for any inventions or the right sequence for removing all the tags on new shirts.
But maybe I can make somebody smile. I can be happy, positive and enthusiastic.
And if that’s enough to brighten the day of somebody around me, especially my family, then that’s the right Mike for me.