I think (knock on wood) I am back from the land of the on-line living dead.
It was a harrowing ordeal for me. I was confronted with all sorts of things-- emotions, thoughts, conflicts, frustrations, memories-- that I had been avoiding or I had managed to not have to face.
Sometimes I end up wondering why I can't just have an easy life? Why can't my desires and goals be greenlighted all the way to the destination? I imagine an old school crossing guard, waving me through at each juncture, a big smile on his/her face as I stroll my way to the life of my dreams. "Yes, Rowena, this is the way to the life you are destined to live. Yes, we love and respect you. Yes, you deserve to have everything you want, pass on through."
It's a nice image, isn't it?
But as I have been very rarely greenlighted through life, I have come to value the struggles that I have had to face. Broken hearts, flat broke wallets, getting stuck in subways or getting mired in jobs that go nowhere. People taking advantage or making false accusations. Confusion, frustration, anger, sadness, depression...it has all just been so darn HARD. I'm sure you have your own litany of roadblocks. You know what I am talking about.
But when I look back at my history, and see those moments, it is always the most difficult struggles that have lead me to the biggest breakthroughs in my life. I stop putting up with wrong situations. I learn to depend on myself. I turn to creativity to answer my questions. I find a better community. I commit to actually being the person I want to be.
Without the struggles in my life, would I have had the successes?
Someone said, I don't know who... that life provides you with just the obstacles you need to get to where you are going. Or maybe it was that YOU provide the obstacles.
I like the idea that obstacles are not really blocks to our progress, but stepping stones. I like even better the idea that we are in charge of the things that get in our way, that on some level, we CHOOSE the struggles we go through.
It may not make the struggles any less hard to get through, but it helps me to think that 1, we are not at the mercy of life, but in charge of it, and 2, all those seemingly unproductive years and blocks and failures are actually getting us where we want to go.
Let me rephrase that number 2. Our struggles are not stopping us from achieving our mission in life, they are actually GETTING us there.
Love the idea of obstacles as stepping stones...nice twist
ReplyDelete"The best way out is always through." When was the last time you didn't learn something valuable from a failure? When we struggle or fall short, we stop, we look, we listen, we try again and when we get it right? Well, when we finally get it right, we are done with it, no longer a challenge and we move on to something else that we want to get right.
ReplyDeleteIt's life.
Whoever came up with the idea that life was supposed to be easy and supposed to end with happy endings and flowers and little chipmunks singing to you was crazy.
I'd much rather take the good and the bad together....it makes life rich.
d'arcy: I think it was Walt Disney. Happily Ever After, Someday My Prince Will Come, When You Wish Upon A Star, and all that. Well maybe he didn't come up with it, but he sure did make it into an industry.
ReplyDeletenatasha, that was the breakthrough for me, that somehow those obstacles were what was getting us to where we needed to go and there was a purpose to them, not just frustration.