so i woke up at 6 o'clock this morning. and was wide awake.

this surprises some of you. the rest of you are merely shaking your heads. (actually, all of you are probably shaking your heads, but that's neither here nor there.)

so i got out of bed, fixed myself a lovely plate full of french toast (oui, oui!), poured a glass of milk, and set about brewing a steaming cup of coffee.

finishing my breakfast, i put my dishes in the sink and sat alone (no one else in this house ever wakes up before 7:30) with my warm cup of glory, thinking.

in my short 18 years on this fair planet, i have found that the most profound thoughts usually come to people in one of the three following places:

1) the shower (i have no idea why . . .)

2) anywhere with friends at any time between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning. (these profound thoughts, if recorded, are generally far less profound the following morning.)

and . . .

3) sitting alone over a cup of coffee.

this post, if you haven't guessed already (and if you haven't given up on reading my rambling thoughts), deals with number 3.

as i sat drinking the aromatic brew some of us have come to call "liquid Jesus," i did, in fact, have a very profound thought:

if God wanted you to be like napoleon, you would have been born napoleon.

now, before most of you say "what the heck?!" allow me to rephrase it so that it is applicable to the general public who couldn't care less about my beloved french (well, corsican, really) emperor:

if God wanted you to be like someone else, you would have been born someone else.

there's a lot in that.

if God wanted everyone to be the same (to think the same, to hold the same beliefs or convictions) there wouldn't be such diversity on our little planet.

basically, if God wanted us to all be the same, we would be.

and how boring would that be?

(the appropriate answer at this point would be, "pretty darn.")

so my advice to you this morning:

be yourself.

there's only one of you. and there's only ever going to be one of you. (unless they start playing around with this whole cloning mess, but that's another post entirely.)

so don't be afraid of what other people will think. don't be afraid to share what you think. don't be afraid of who you are.

because God made you that way.

and if anyone's going to love you for who you are, He is.

and who else matters?

this has been caffeinated wisdom with your host, the brian. thank you for reading.