When life gets hard and the people around you only seem to make it harder, it's easy to let hatred seep in and steer you towards negativity-I should know, I've let it happen on multiple occasions, including when I couldn't do class work for a month because I waited for my sister to get the computer screen she promised me, which she never did. I can't even count how many times people have let me down by making a promise, then forgetting about it, nor have I forgot how much it pissed me off, but in all honesty, for all the stuff I can make happen on my own, I really should be mad at myself-and I am. For years I blamed the crap I went through on other or people and felt like life was out of my control, specifically when it went to crap, like when I rolled my ankle and was never taken to the hospital, instead dipping it in ice water and hoping it healed properly.
The bitterness from all that colored my perception in drastic ways and made me hesitant to ever fully take on the great unknown. I didn't think my heart could take that kind crushing disappointment and failure, so I never let myself be open to that even being a possibility. However, as I work towards being a proper adult, I'm finding that to grow greatly, one must accept falling well short as one of many things there to help them grow how they wish. More and more I'm seeing that when I let this become part of my life, I'll unearth the thing I've been on the edge of for a long, long time.
I say edge because I've been a lazy, structureless slacker for quite some time, getting an intense amount of knowledge and growth in short bursts, and never with the will and stubbornness needed to set up and stick to a certain schedule. Despite all that, I've become knowledgeable in a bunch of different fields, the years bringing my focus to writing, English and the Japanese language. When I began teaching the language, I was how I imagine many beginning students are: an insufferable prick.
As I learned more about the language and the culture that powers it, I discovered that not only did it give me a place to direct my energy, but it, along with writing, became my savior-the thing that lifted me up when I fell deep into the emotional darkness. Because of that, I worked to use my skills to help others gain the knowledge I struggled and scratched for all these years in as relate-able a way as I can manage.
Now, I’ve reached the point where in order to take the next big step, I'll need to find the guts to form a routine and stick to it so I can learn to evolve from it, the box from which to think out of, so to speak. Will I become a another brick in the wall? At this point, with all the crap I've managed to get over, I'd just be happy living a fairly regular life that fulfills me where I need to be, with any success I hit on as result being a nice bonus. If I fail, so what? As long as I'm still kicking, I still have a chance to make something positive and leave something wonderful behind when my time comes.
Really, that's been at the heart of a lot of stuff I do, even something as small as giving someone a quarter so they can pay their bus fare. Yes, there's a ton of messed up stuff going on under our noses each day, but I don't like just moaning and groaning about it, I want to see some solutions, however flawed they may be. This is the standard I've held both myself and others to over the years, 'cause to me, there's plenty of hot air going around and not enough stuff to put that air to work, which I want to correct however possible.
Even now, where I've become significantly saltier about how the world works, I've never believed in solely spreading around negativity and sought to live a life of balance, both emotionally and financially. If one only lets themselves see what goes wrong, they can never see what goes right, a way of life I wish no one would willingly subject themselves to.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment