I’m not sure why this is, but
when I get sick and have to spend days lying in bed recuperating, I tend to
take stock of my life. I re-evaluate
what I am doing, what I want to be doing, if I’m happy. I suppose this happens
because I have slowed down and am rid of distractions. Distractions are my coping
mechanism though, and are often very welcome because introspection can tend to
be slightly difficult. Well, I have been sick for the past couple of days, and
therefore I have been re-evaluating.
Interestingly enough, my friends
all seem to be taking stock of their lives at the same time, and what they have
shared has been pretty inspiring. From my cousins to my brothers and many of my
friends, it seems that everyone is sharing today how happy and blessed they
feel.
I have indeed been happier lately
too, which some friends have noticed and commented on. I suppose that is mostly
due to the fact that I can actually pay my rent and am working. Perhaps it is
more than that too, though. Since I have been taking things one day at a time
and enjoying myself instead of worrying about my career and my next step, the doom
and gloom that I emanated months before has subsided. I still feel guilty at
times that I haven’t been diligently looking for work in my field, but I know
that putting some of that anxiety behind me for a while was exactly what I
needed. I cannot change my situation by worrying, so I am trying to simply live
the moments that I’m in and stay open for the ones to come. My biggest goal as
of late was to simply not worry. This doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on any of
my goals; I’m simply not allowing my future goals to control my present
happiness.
And yet, some might say I have
lacked certain motivation as of late. At times this may be true, and maybe I am
even letting my present work situation distract me, but my end goals are still
the same and I know that when the opportunity presents itself I will grab on
with both hands and will be extremely motivated to follow through.
Right now I am focused on
enjoying myself, on staying happy and positive, making the right connections,
and learning something new. I feel like everything I go through teaches me
something, and I have learned a lot (particularly about myself) over the last
couple of months.
Bringing this back to taking
stock of my life though, there are some things in particular that I struggle
with that I want to actively change, and I have been learning through my
friends that this is possible. One friend that has inspired me has just gone
through one of the most exciting and also most heartbreaking years of his life.
He has come out of it feeling incredibly blessed, happy, vibrant, and capable
of being open to love and goodness. Frankly he is one of the most positive and
upbeat people I have ever met and I really admire him. He has had so many
negative obstacles come about that would get anyone down, but he chooses to
focus on the positive and to be happy. I feel like there is so much that I can
learn from him. He mentioned two things that really resonated with me: his
ability to find meaning in his life, and his ability to love openly. These are
two things I struggle with on a daily basis.
I have let external circumstances
dictate the meaning in my life, whether it’s a lack of a job in my field or a
lack of a significant other, I keep on feeling like something is missing and
that my life is somehow less meaningful due to these absences. The rational
side of me knows that this is wrong and that my life is meaningful if I am creating
meaningful experiences, but I constantly feel like I am in a holding pattern
waiting for something truly meaningful to happen.
My biggest shortcoming, though,
is my inability to create meaningful relationships. I keep everyone at a
distance, even my own family. I don’t even think my parents would really know
what was going on in my life if they didn’t read my blog. And even then, there
are obviously a lot of things I don’t post on here. It is very hard for me to
love openly, and so I tend to push people away or not let them get too close, and
then I wonder why I feel so alone. I know that I do this to protect myself, but
this defence mechanism to keep me from getting hurt is often what hurts me the
most. If you cannot trust and depend on people, you are destined to live a very
lonely life. If someone likes me, I run, if they don’t like me, I agonize over
why. I don’t like this quality about myself and it has been something I have
been working on changing for a while.
I know that my problem falls
somewhere on an axis of possessing an incessant need to look outside of myself
for meaning and validation, and (somewhat in opposition) a refusal to depend on
anything outside of myself for happiness. It is a kind of catch 22, if I refuse
to allow my happiness to depend on transient things, but also cannot be happy
without those transient things, then how can I ever be happy? The reality is
that things do end, people come and go from your life, but does that make these
experiences or the interactions you have had with these people any less
meaningful? If we never make friends or form intimate relationships because we
know there is a high probability that those connections will eventually be severed,
then really what is the point of living? Our lives themselves are intrinsically
transient – we are here one day and gone the next. So unless we are going to
consider life itself meaningless, which I don’t believe any of us would, then
there is value in the transient. For
example, I am not in touch with any of my friends from gradschool anymore, but
the year I spent out east from gradschool was one of the best years of my life.
I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. It is sad to see people come and
go, sure, but the fact that you got to know them at all is a real blessing.
So, in the nature of re-evaluating
myself and my life, I am going to aim to enjoy the moment, to learn from it, to
focus on the positive and try not to worry about the negative, and to
appreciate the value and beauty of all of the little moments. In the end I
think life just might be an accumulation of little moments. If you are
constantly waiting around for the big ones to happen, then you miss out on the
small ones happening daily and you miss out on your life.
Thank you to all of you who are showing me this daily. I appreciate each and every one of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment