Beautify your name- Anne of Green Gables style

A friend posted this quote on Facebook yesterday: '[live] so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with…making it stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself'   - Anne of Green Gables

What a beautiful quote.  I started to think about when Nick and I would throw around our future baby names and one would come up and it would remind us of someone in our past.  Usually it wasn't a good reminder and that name was tossed to the side.  I decided that even though one in five girls is named Katie, I want to beautify my name.  I want to live in a way that others who knew me wouldn't be turned off by the name because of my actions.


 I have been trying to reflect on this and figure out the changes I need to make in my life.  So here is what I have come up with.

1. Speak kindly-  I love listening to gossip, not for it being mean but just knowing other peoples business, it's interesting and gives me something to talk about.  But I realized that it gets to be exhausting and I start to focus on all the negative things about other people and my life, so I want to focus on trying to uplift conversations.

2.  Give more compliments than criticisms.  I have a bad habit of judging people as they walk by me... terrible shoes, pants that are too short, everything is a hot mess.  That is none of my business.  Who knows why they look a certain way, it isn't my business and I should use my thoughts and time to make others realize their worth not cut them down.

3.  Look beautiful.   Not only do I need to remember that others deserve to see that I care about my appearance in front of them but also I want to have that special something that makes me shine from the inside.   I have met a handful of people in my life that by industry standards are ordinary but their inner beauty makes them absolutely gorgeous, they just seems to radiate.  Those people that come up in conversation that you say "I don't know what it is about her but she is gorgeous".   I want that, and I feel that it comes from being genuinely positive and kind to all.

4.  Go out of my way to make people feel comfortable.   I want to start taking notice of the people around me.  Is someone sitting alone at church?  Does someone look a little down at work?   I need to find an uncreepy way to reach out to them.

Now go and watch some Anne of Green Gables!