It was definitely winter.  I can’t quite remember if it was my first winter experiencing snow, but I think I was around six or seven.  My parents’ work had taken us to Paris and there I was, building my own snowman in the school yard.

My snowman was small, perhaps a foot and half, and pretty skinny as snowmen go. I stuck the requisite carrot in for a nose, and paused to look over my shoulder.  A few of my classmates had teamed up to make their own snowman too.  Whether it was because I was new to the school, had a fallout with the other children, or was just being a diva … I can’t remember.  I can’t remember why I ended up with my own tiny snowman.  Fact is, there I was with my anorexic snowman 10 feet away from the other, huge, round communal snowman.

Yet, I don’t recall feeling in the least bit put out, left out or bad in any way.  I had my own skinny snowman and that was cool.  No pun intended.  After all, in those days cool just meant cold.

That scene in the snow covered school yard came back to me recently. It occurred to me than in this day and age of mass communication made easy, there are so many options of other snowmen teams to join.  Almost too easy.  Especially joining the team and passing ones’s self off as an original contributor.  It’s also become just as tempting to imitate, with blatant copying, not emulating being an every day occurrence.

Of course, it’s useful and even recommended to learn from those who have succeeded in areas that are important to us.  The key here is to learn and incorporate into our own individual landscape.  It does not serve us to change our entire landscape, our belief systems, our very own core to completely buy into some other way of being just so we can become identical to the ones we admire (Unless it’s Beyonce.  Or Lady GaGa.  Just kidding.  Or am I?)

Similarly, when choosing to collaborate, it’s important to differentiate between being a groupie who just wants some of that shiny stardust to rub off on her, and being a significant contributor who helps create the magic.  Because while there is strength in numbers, and innovation is often borne out of team work, there is absolutely no glory in hitching your wagon to someone else’s cart just because you can’t be bothered finding your own horse. And there’s even less glory in taking the polar opposite position just because it isn’t your horse doing the pulling.  Actually, the latter is downright malicious and wasteful.

So going back to that beautifully crispy cold day so many years ago, whatever my motivations, I chose to build my own version of skeletal snowman.  I snapped the carrot in half-ish as it was too big for my puny snowman (‘puny is my son’s favourite word for ‘insignificant’), added in a couple of small stones for eyes and the other half of the carrot stuck in horizontally for a rigid, unsmiling mouth.  Then, happy with my masterpiece, I continued playing during the rest of our break.

This year, I resolve to build more snowmen, even if the one across the road is bigger, better and shinier.  I resolve to listen to my inner artist and treat her as relevant and worthy of my efforts.  I resolve to resist the pull of the well-trodden path long enough to consciously discern whether it is going in my direction anyway or if I’m falling into the lure of the path of least resistance.

This year, I will take the time to make my own stardust and sprinkle it on top of my skinny (promoted from puny) snowman.  Right after I take the time to give my snowman a beautiful, well defined broad smile.

Happy 2011!