Proud of you

Next week is Mister Rogers birthday. Despite the passage of time his words continue to inspire. He has a very simple and perfect message: You are special and so is your neighbor. He inspired and modeled this throughout his life.

I’m proud of you, I’m proud of you I hope that you are proud of you too

Who doesn’t want to hear this? Who doesn’t NEED to hear this?

Learning how important you are,
How important each person you see can be.
Discovering each one's specialty
Is the most important learning.

I’m important, your important, both of us are uniquely important, there never has been and never will be anyone exactly like you and if I can learn from what’s important about you, that is the most valuable thing I can do in a day or in a lifetime. WOW, how cool and how true is that?

The other component aside from learning from each other is connecting. The thing Mister Rogers did was look into the camera, he spoke to me and to you and to countless children that needed someone to see them. Now I know in future blogs I will likely warn about the dangers of such connections with fictional characters, but Fred Rogers was not fictional, he was connecting with his audience. He understood that children and adults need someone to look them in the eye and tell them they are special. We all need this, from birth to death we need connection, we need to be told we are uniquely special. We need to see what is special and beautiful about the people around us.

In honor of Mister Rogers I urge you to learn from your neighbors.  Acknowledge that we have opportunities to connect with people everyday that are uniquely and wonderfully special.

And to you, my blog neighbors:

I hope you are proud of the way you are growing,

the way you are becoming the unique person you are in this world.

Because its YOU I like