Wild Geese

I ran across this poem and it made me think...especially with my current not-going-back-to-BYU-in-the-fall situation.

Wild Geese 
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


I struggle with this concept. It's hard to internalize the fact that I don't need to be what the world wants me to be, what my friends want me to be, or even what my family wants me to be. All I need to be is who I want to be and who God wants me to be. Those are hard enough to figure out and be as it is, so I don't need the pressure to be anyone else. I can just be me.