Tag: #bekind

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

Well, that’s easy…. The painful ones.

Heartbreaking loss? Taught me that I am strong, even when I don’t feel like I can be.

Betrayal? Taught me the grace of forgiveness and the art of discernment.

Abject failure? Taught me that everything in life is an opportunity to learn.

The thing is, the good things in life – the shit we live for? They are beautiful, but they don’t help us grow and evolve as people. Think about it. Any time you get better at something, it’s only because you failed at it before but kept trying. The only reason you stopped (insert addictive behavior) is because you realized that it was destroying you/your family/your life. The only reason you know you are strong is because you’ve had to be. The only reason you’ve grown as a person is because you’ve experienced pain.

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

I don’t know.

While the romanticized idea of having a fated partner in life or a destined purpose for your time on this spinning rock is enticing, i kinda don’t buy it. There are far too many variables in a given day (much less a lifetime!) for there to be a single destiny for every single person, and for things to work out in just such a way to make that a reality.

In thinking about this, I had a thought that perhaps it’s more of a probability of probabilities. There’s way more than this, of course, but let’s assume that your life has 100 different ways it could play out. in 90% of them, you are what society would consider successful. let’s say that in 30% of that, you’re a photographer, 10% a teacher, 10% you’re self-employed. But in 50% of that 90%, you’re a doctor. So, that’s a 45% chance of you being a doctor, vs 27% for a photographer, or 9% a self-employed (insert random thing here).

I, like most people, am a big fan of the idea of free will. The ideas of fate or destiny don’t really jive with that. Because fate or destiny is based on the idea that if something is “meant” to happen, it will, and you can’t stop it. That’s deterministic. So – best of both worlds, right? Probabilities. Life may stack the odds in favor of one thing or another, but the choice is ultimately yours.

Do you enjoy your job?

Yes!

I solve problems of various different types for all sorts of people. It’s challenging and dynamic – i don’t really get bored.

Now, that’s not to say that every day is full of metaphoric cookies, puppies and rainbows. I have bad days, long days, frustrating days, days when i wish i could resort to violence – that’s just part of living as a human being. But overall, i love my job. I also understand how lucky i am in that regard, and am grateful.

Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

Closing a chapter in your life can be bittersweet, or it can be exhilarating, but it can also be obscured by the events that turned that last page…

Such is the case with me. Due to circumstances far outside the realm of my control, i left the innocence and relative feelings of safety that come with childhood far too early. At the time, i had no concept of what closing a chapter of your life even meant, much less realize that that was what was happening.

I was a precocious little girl – an old soul, my grandmother would say. perhaps that’s why i didn’t notice my childhood waving at me, teary eyed, as i walked away. Of course i didn’t notice something as “insignificant” as my childhood – there were more important things that needed to be done to help my family. I could get back to playing and imagining after, when everything was back to normal… right? Wrong. oh, how very wrong. the blissful days of running around in a sun shower, Saturday morning cartoons, and playing hide and seek or Miss Mary Mack all disappeared in the blink of an eye, and I didn’t even know it had happened.

Later in life, i had to deal with and process this goodbye, and it was hard. Probably one of the hardest things i’ve ever had to do for myself. Even years later, i was wholly unprepared for it and the emotions that came with it, most of which i had thought i had buried deep enough that I’d never have to deal with them again. Oh, the charming ignorance of childhood…