EDITOR'S COLUMN “If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don't give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.” – Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
I was all set to write this column about spring—about newness and hope and growth and renewal. But then I happened upon the above quote and changed my mind. Spring, and the new opportunities, the new life, it represents is a wonderful thing, but I recognized our award winners, our contributors, and our readers in the quote and decided to write about them. For most of us, being completely ourselves is probably the most difficult thing we try to do. It sometimes seems as if family, friends, teachers, bosses, advertisers, career advisors, and even complete strangers want to tell us who and what we should be, how we should present ourselves, and why who we actually are isn’t a “good fit.” But the people who appear in the pages of our magazine have ignored those people. They are unapologetically themselves. They have followed their own instincts and often, created their own career path. And, they have been willing to change course when it became clear that their current course wasn’t a good fit for them. Owning who they are and what they think and how they interact with others is an admirable trait that nearly every contributor and every award winner that we at PDJ encounter seems to have been born with or worked to acquire. Again and again, I read contributors’ articles and nominees’ essays that, in one way or another, deliver the author’s authentic self, talk about their successes and failures, their passions and their fears, and share their life experiences—honestly and unvarnished. That’s what makes them leaders and winners—and what makes their stories important and inspiring. Just to give spring its due, I want to include this quote from Edith Mary Pargeter, a British writer who, ironically, authored many books under the pen name, Ellis Peters: “Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.” Thanks for reading. Teresa Fausey Associate Editor
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2021 First Quarter
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