Painting by Marc Chagall in Chagall Museum in Nice, France

One of the things I love about starting each new day… or new writing project… or working with a new client is this: I get to start with a new, blank canvas.  And that means I get to let my inner master painter out, and get working on my latest and greatest (so far) masterpiece!

Now before you think I’m an egotistical crazy woman, let me explain…

I love using the painting a masterpiece theme – because in real life?  I’m a really bad, horrible painter.  (My paintings are so bad that when he looked at one of my seascapes – with his head tilted to the left – turned to me and said, “Mama – someone pulled the plug and all the ocean is going down the drain in your painting.”)
And yes, I still have paints and an easel, and try my hand at painting every winter. (Although I’ve discovered I much prefer taking photos and love being an amateur photographer!)

But the important thing is this: Each one of us has a masterpiece inside of us.

And we are the only ones who can ‘paint’ our masterpiece.

There’s no one else in the world who can do it for us.

Which means, if you don’t do it… If you don’t paint your masterpiece – your life – the way you want it… Then it’s never going to get done.  It will remain unfinished forever.

And what’s worse?  If you don’t paint your own masterpiece – if you’re not living your life the way you want to – doing the things you want to do, and being the person you are meant to be… then it’s like you’re just going through the motions – living a paint-by-number of someone else’s life…

Today you have the chance to work on your own masterpiece – not the washed out, deeply lined and strictly numbered canvas of someone else’s life.  But yours.  Your unique, one-of-a-kind masterpiece. Everything you say, every choice you make, everything you do – or don’t do – is being added to your masterpiece right now.

At the end of the day, what’s your masterpiece going to look like?