Kacey Musgraves is a favorite country artist of mine & she really has a knack for writing lyrics that say things with a certain flair. For instance, in her song “Biscuits”, the tag line is “Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy”. Or in one of her songs about equality, she wonderfully states, “Follow your arrow wherever it points”. But maybe one of my favorite songs by Musgraves is not one of her huge hits, but a little known track called “Cup of Tea”, in which she says, “You can’t be everybody’s cup of tea…so you might as well just make it as you please.”

It’s a wonderful way to convey that try as you may, you probably can’t and never will make everyone happy. No matter what you do. It doesn’t matter how many different ways you put something, there will always be someone who has a different opinion or chooses the different side of the coin. So in the end, you might just as well follow your own path to happiness.

Aren’t our differences kind of the best part of life anyway? I think so. Imagine how incredibly boring it would be if we all had the same likes and dislikes. Or the same tastes in everything. Sure, you might have less political drama in your day to day Facebook feed, but you’d also have a lot less options on Netflix and Hulu. And that noodle house everyone is talking about? It would never exist! Because noodle houses wouldn’t even be a THING!

Since we’ve been old enough to pick out our own clothes and decide whether or not we like green beans, we start to develop our “sense of self”. But we also have to find a way to factor tolerance in there too.

Just this past week, there was a horrifically brutal hate crime committed in Chicago that appears to have been racially motivated and also partially provoked by the victim’s disability. Events like this not only anger me, & make me feel incredibly sad & disheartened, but they remind me time and again why it is so important to follow that Golden Rule and “treat others as you’d want to be treated”. Life is not a game & there are consequences to your actions.

I can remember being very small when I was taught simply “we love and accept all people.” Simple as that. It’s a phrase I repeat often and has served me well when I’ve met situations that have been challenging in terms of bigotry, misogyny, hatred, or bias. To just love and accept is truly a gift. It kind of goes along the same lines as “killing them with kindness”.

I still like to think there are always going to be more good people out there than bad. And that hopefully our differences can be celebrated. Take the time to get to know someone you might not otherwise. Whether person be of a different culture, race, age, or whatever their differences might be. Remember, you can always “unfriend” someone in life if things don’t go according to plan.

Opening your heart and your mind are wonderful ways to challenge yourself and grow both personally and emotionally. And that can feel like really “GOOD STUFF”.