Hello and welcome back to practicing human the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host Kory Muscarra and in today's episode we're going to talk about acceptance and growth. More to come on that in a moment.

First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells. D' So I'd like to start by sharing something I wrote recently.

It's very short.

It says, you can't exchange your ball of clay,

but you can mold the heck out of the one you've been given.

You can't exchange your ball of clay, but you can mold the heck out of the one you've been given.

So I think we hear that and have an intuitive sense of what it's pointing to but in case that's not clear

this is referring to and the fundamental parts of you,

parts that make up who you are,

that are uniquely yours,

and have been given to you at birth.

Some of these things are positive and make our life easier and some of these things

are what we might perceive as negative and they make our lives more difficult. They become our big work in the world.

And I think for many of us,

as we come into a self-consciousness at an early age and we're able to assess ourselves

in relationship to other people, we get to see the other balls of clay that are out there.

And it can be very compelling to want to exchange your ball of clay for another one.

It might seem like that ball of clay over there has life easier.

It doesn't have the same struggles that you have and it may very well be true.

But this big... and it may very well be true.

But this big work that we have to do in this human lifetime

...