You never know when you’re being appreciated.

I was heading out my driveway this afternoon when I quickly stopped to check if we’d received any mail. We had! What a very exciting occasion for us, especially because it wasn’t a bill. Instead, it was a letter informing me that I had been nominated for Australian of the Year 2011. This letter continued to explain that I had not been selected to continue into the final round, however I should be proud that I was chosen by someone to be a nominee.

What an accomplishment! I can certainly tell you that I’ve been flying high ever since and it made me realign my way of thinking just a tad. See, a time that I was feeling like my work wasn’t going anywhere and that giving up on my ‘save the world’ endeavours and embarking on a personal creative one instead seemed like the best decision for me at the time. However, for this person, I was an inspiration. Their inspiration. It was me empowering someone else to be a better person and this made me realise, that you can never know who you are influencing in your life.

There’s a quote that goes something, ‘Never stop laughing even when you’re sad because you never know whose falling in love with your smile’, and I think this is quite similar. Replacing ‘laughing’ with ‘trying’, ‘sad’ with ‘giving up on humanity’, ‘falling in love with’ to ‘admiring’ and ‘smile’ with ‘achievements’, and I think we’ve got a new saying.

When everywhere you seem to look there’s a barrier of some sort, it can absolutely be difficult to move on and there’s always going to be someones’ influence that stifles you and makes you question what you’re doing. However whose to say that they are right, particularly when just as likely, there’s someone inspired by who you are and what you’re doing.

So this is just a quick post for you all out there, perhaps going through a hard time for whatever it is that you are doing… “Never stop trying when you’re giving up on humanity because you never know whose admiring  your achievements” (no matter how small you may believe that they are).

Keep it up, lip ladies!