At the turn of this year I wrote a little three word note that I thought was going to be a simple objective for the year: Live One Life. It was fairly straightforward when I wrote it down; I just want to be myself regardless of who I am with and what is going on around me.

The problem: Live One Life was a bit more complicated than I thought it would be. In order to live one life I needed to know who I am, what I stand for, and choose to be that person regardless of what others think or say.

Realistically, I don’t have all of those answers. I know what I stand for but I don’t understand how that always should coincide with my actions. Worse yet, I am a personal perfectionist. I know that mistakes are part of life; I just think that they shouldn’t be a part of my life.

Marley and Me

Several weeks into my newfound identity crisis we adopted a puppy named Marley. On a side note Marley was given a name and a subtitle (yes seriously) thanks to the book and movie Marley and Me. So if you ever meet her feel free to greet her as “Marley, the world’s best dog.”

It didn’t take long for me to realize that Marley already knew exactly who she was. It didn’t matter what type of day anyone else was having she just loved to be herself: she always greets me at the door, she is always a friend, and it is obvious that she genuinely loves just being herself.

Live One Life

Then it hit me: Living One Life isn’t as complicated as I thought; in fact it is so simple that even Marley can do it. I just needed to be ME. Living One Life means giving yourself the freedom to be imperfect and the opportunity to do what you can to make the world a better place. It is a life focus on doing what I can do rather than focusing on what I can’t do.