The Joy of Being You

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The human journey makes more sense when we can keep it in perspective with what we observe in the natural world. Billions of years of subtle changes have shaped life into a snapshot of what it is today. This is a vast amount of time and yet, it tells the story about why you are unique.

Nature can teach you about the enormous power that comes from being authentically yourself.

A Perfect Setting

4.5 billion years ago, the earth was formed from swirling gases and dust particles. As the third planet from the sun, a mid-size rock tumbling through space found itself in a location that was not too hot, and not too cold. It offered the perfect conditions for life to emerge.

Its first lifeforms were single-celled microbes like bacteria. We know this because we find their carbon footprint left in fossils that date back 3.7 billion years ago. They reproduced using binary fission, dividing to create clone-like versions of themselves. Bacteria still use this method of reproduction today.

Tectonic shifting created volcanoes that spewed high levels of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and methane into the atmosphere. There was virtually no oxygen in the early environment.

Nature Drives Innovations

But a strange thing happened around 3.4 billion years ago. A type of bacteria called cyanobacteria began to evolve among the single-celled organisms. Unlike the prevailing anaerobes, breaking down food through chemical reactions, they evolved using a method of oxygenic photosynthesis.

By turning light and water into energy, they began to release the oxygen molecule from the water. Photosynthesis allows plants to transform water into oxygen and carbon dioxide into glucose.

However, once oxygen began to proliferate across the earth, the prevailing anaerobes found this new environment deadly. Some were forced to the bottom of the ocean to survive. Later, they would survive inside of the digestive tracts of animals. They aid in processing nutrients and keep the immune system healthy.

In Search of a Better Way

This early oxygenation event created another innovation where bacteria were forced to find survival within other cells. While the earlier, one-celled organisms were still reproducing by dividing themselves into exact replicas, this merging opened the way for the sharing of genetic material.

It is believed that this mutualistic cooperation between organisms evolved into sexual reproduction. While cells still divide as they did before, each time, they do so with new ingredients. The combining of two kinds of genetic material allowed life to create even more variations.

Today, this merging drives the inner life of multi-cellular organisms. From bacteria living in larger cells, life evolved into more complex organisms such as humans.

To store the increasing amounts of genetic information, DNA molecules emerged. Your DNA holds the instructions of how you will develop. In addition to physical characteristics, up to 60% of temperament and intelligence are shaped by your DNA.

Cultivate Your Passion

You are a combination drawn from the DNA of both lines of your parents. You will not be like them because you are a new variation. You won’t be like your siblings either. Nature offset competition for short supply through diversity. Like dandelion pods blowing in the wind, your unique desires will propel you in different directions.

When you look at what nature is doing today, you can be certain that each lifeform you see, is the best of what nature has designed at this moment. Through you, it explores possibilities for something even greater.

In this amazing tapestry of innovations – you’ve been given a chance to materialize the direction that comes from your authentic design. Conforming to what others are doing is like reverting to a more primitive instinct – a time when life was creating exact replicas of itself.

You are more than that.

You can only activate the power of originality that nature bestowed upon you by being fearlessly yourself. By understanding who you really are – you will discover your center and can activate your passions. When faced with obstacles, it is your passion that will carry you through.

Cultivate your uniqueness. Discover the power of authenticity.