Early this summer when I got my promotion, I was happy and scared at the same time. Happy because I knew I deserved the promotion, but scared because its been a while since something this great has come my way so easily. I was sure the good fortune would quickly be followed by some misfortune. After all, I have been fighting, fighting for the last four years to keep myself together under the weight of many stresses. More than anything, I was afraid the good fortune would disturb the sense of calm I had recently found.
There are some people who can always maintain a positive attitude, and never despair. I am not one of those people. I am almost always worried about something, but I try hard to keep my anxiety in check when I walk out the door. I always say “change is good” but there are times I say it because I need to remind myself of that fact.
So I had a lot of hardships these last couple years. I fought back, and did my best to overcome them. I have come to the point where a big part of the fight will be with myself and allowing change to happen as it naturally will. There are some things I don’t want to let go of, but not letting them go might be more harmful in the long haul.
In a way, I have caged myself in my ideals, and I held on to childish dreams. Did I really think that one day my family would live in five houses surrounding a lush court yard where we would play croquet and drink tea? Or that all the people I love(d) and I would never part ways? I guess for some time I did. So much of what I desired depended on other people. Though I’ve always considered myself to be quite independent, I’m learning that there is this other thing I’ve lost touch with: Individualism. It’s starting to become clear that Individualism is going to be that sacrifice in the long haul.
I know I was more individualistic when I was younger, but as I grew up I thought it was childish that I couldn’t try to see things more from other people’s perspectives. I went to great lengths to be more intuitive, and to listen before I talk; to weigh all matters at hand before jumping to conclusions, and to always be honest about what I thought. Eventually, I decided that that was how I could achieve balance in my life by weighing it all out.
I saw balance like a seesaw, or a weighing instrument that one might typically see for ads relating to justice. On one side was me, and on the other side was the world. Yeah, I know this is sounding a bit narcissistic, egocentric and maybe a little hypomanic, but that’s what blogs are for, and just follow me here, ok (in the like of Barney Stinson). I thought if I could balance myself with everything in my life, I could find peace or some kind of calm state of being. Now, I don’t think balancing life can be done on a scale with two sides measuring for equal weight, but balancing life is more like atoms and particles moving at super speed and I just have to let it happen in which ever crazy way its going to happen because its the momentum that keeps it balanced. And, inner peace isn’t something that I can achieve on a constant, but its more like sunshine that I should enjoy while it lasts. And individuality isn’t one of the supersonic particles of life that is out of reach, but it is the filter that I see myself and life through.
I can’t explain what this all means or how it means, but I like the idea of more individualism. I’m going to slowly introduce it back into my life one shade at a time until I get the filter just right - or not at all.
