Each and
every one of us is a gift. We mustn’t deprive the world of the gift of our
being.
In many little ways, I deprive the world of my
gift every day. I don’t write enough. I don’t speak up enough. I let my
opinions go unspoken. I don’t question enough. I continue to do things the way I’ve
always done them without asking myself if that’s the best way, or more
importantly, if that’s the way I really want
to do it. I don’t challenge all of the inconsistencies and injustices I see. Of
most importance, I’m simply not always me
to the fullest extent I can be.
In this moment, I do not know all that I am or
all that I am capable of being. But my spirit is trying to tell me at every second
of every day. Every time I feel excitement, my spirit is trying to guide me,
trying to push me in the right direction. But unfortunately I do not always
listen. This is a problem that I believe most of us struggle with. We are so preoccupied with finding our way and
leading a purposeful life that we often miss so many road signs. We’re
conditioned to pick a path and stay on it. But when we do that, we often miss the
path that was really meant for us.
When we’re as young as five years old, people
ask us “what we want to be when we grow up”— as if we’re supposed to know. Then
when we start school people ask us what are favorite subject is—as if we’re
meant to have only one. We go to college and we choose a major— as if our life
path should then magically fit within the lines of that field. And therefore we
worry when it doesn’t. We feel like we somehow failed if what makes us excited
isn’t exactly in line with that field
of study. It can make us feel like our choice was wrong or that the time and
effort we put into it was futile.
All of these insecurities are ones that I have
struggled with over the years. But I’m here in Spain, teaching English—which
isn’t exactly on the “list” of things to do with my majors—yet I’ve never before
felt so genuinely that I was on my path. I want to continue with this
excitement. I want to maybe get my teaching certificate. I want to definitely
continue to work with Spanish speakers and with children. I’m passionate about
it; that’s how I know it’s my path. And I don’t need to know right now how that’s
going to manifest itself. I don’t need to know that I’m going to teach
bilingual third grade for the rest of my life because hoping for exactly that
is simply putting a new set of restrictions on myself. I don’t want to do that.
Instead, I want to focus on the right here and
the right now—what excited me today. And tomorrow, I’ll focus on what excites
me tomorrow. I’ve been getting frustrated lately because my vision of where I’ll
be this summer and what I want to do after that keeps changing. But we should
never be frustrated with that. We shouldn’t be mad at ourselves for “not being
able to make up our minds.” Because we ARE making up our minds; we’re just
making them up differently today than we did yesterday. Why? Because we’re
different people today—different things have happened to us; different conversations
have been had; different emotions have been felt. If we ignore those shifts in
our perspective and our being in order to stick to the path that we chose
yesterday (or four years ago) then we are depriving ourselves of our real excitement,
our real happiness, our real purpose. And by depriving ourselves we deprive
those we love and the whole world around us.
I’ll borrow an analogy from the same source from which my
opening line is paraphrased (and if you’re interested please let me know
and I will explain further, but that’s kinda of whole blog post in itself): We
are all but pieces in this large jigsaw puzzle we call life. Each of us has a
unique shape that is perfectly us— exactly the self we were created to be.
Throughout our lives we sometimes stray from that form; we allow ourselves to
be transformed by “society,” by belief systems that are not in line with our
true values, and by telling ourselves that we want things that we truly do not.
Oftentimes, we allow these changes to happen and we are not even aware of them, but
we end up being a piece that no longer fits into our slot in the puzzle.
What we sadly forget is that the form in which
we were created was created perfectly. We are meant to be that way because
others need us to be. I have a
passion to write and a gift to express myself well because someone, somewhere needs me to do that. By being too afraid
to write I am not only limiting myself but robbing the world and those specific
people who need to read my work.
And that concept goes for everyone and all of our
passions. You don’t need me to give you hypothetical examples. You know what
those passions are. You know what things in your life have given you that
feeling of excitement. You know what it is that has always left you wondering what might have happened if you had followed
that spark. If you’re still thinking about it now, it’s not too late. The spark
is still there and you can act on it. You don’t necessarily have to make some
grand gesture or major life change (although if you are so inclined, please
do!). Simply find some little way in which you can feed that excitement. See if
it grows. You don’t have to know why you’re doing it or how it “fits into” your
plan or purpose. Just do it and see how it makes you feel. My guess is that it
will make you more excited and introduce you to new options and new things that
offer excitement as well.
What I’m learning during my time here in
Granada is not merely how to adapt to a different culture or how to effectively
teach the English language. The most important things that I’m learning are how
to listen to my spirit and how to follow my path down all the little, winding
roads that present themselves. I’m not doing it “perfectly” and, as I said,
there are still many times in which I’m not being my fullest self. But now I’m
aware of that and that consciousness is always the first step.
From now on, I’m going to focus on being my puzzle piece. I’m going to focus on recognizing
that shape and embodying it fully. It may be difficult. It may be scary. But I can
already see that it’s worth it. I am a gift. I am a gift that the world needs. And so
are you.
