When I am driving in the car with my eight year old daughter, she will make song requests. This morning’s request was All Star by Smash Mouth. The song was released in 1999. I realized something as Aiden was belting the chorus, I realized for 26 years I had misheard the song.
The lyric is:
You’ll never shine if you don’t glow
For nearly three decades I had thought it was::
You’ll never shine if you don’t grow
Glow? How do you glow?! To me that sounds like a passive action of just being, if you are a light, you glow. I am 44 years old and the concept of glowing is way more challenging than the concept of growing. Growing is work, striving, targeting the next thing and working hard for it – is that not the only way to shine?
Grow, hustle, grind… I have that down. Glow–that seems very hard.
When was the last time you let yourself glow?
Can you think of a time when you saw yourself as something that shines and emits light?
I have a lot of pride that my daughter is so confident in her shine and she is certain she glows. She does not seek permission to glow. Do not wait for permission to glow, share your light with the world, even while you are growing recognize you are still worthy of glowing.