A friend once said that life is a stress test. It resonated
because he perfectly put the words to how I felt then and how I feel lately. There
is always so much going on I often wonder if this is how life should be.
One thing that sticks out the most is how much this affects
who I am – my personality, my priorities, my relationships, and my dreams. I
look back at who I was years ago, and while I am grateful for some degree of
growth, I cannot help but think about all I have lost to be who I am now.
I think, throughout our lives, we will get to be so many different
people in one person. Some tiny parts of your ‘prototype’ can remain as you
move forward, while other parts can get lost, and you completely forget you
once lived that life.
Through these versions, I have learned to be aware; I ask
questions. I mainly ask God, I ask (spelled as judge) myself, and sometimes I
have asked those I believed will be honest. At every point, whether I received
an answer or not, I am convinced I am not yet who I am.
I am not one to coast therefore, the mental bustle to figure
things out can get exhausting. I want to know if there are things I need to do
or not. I want to be sure I am not wasting time by making mistakes I cannot
recover from. There is also the fear that regardless of my efforts, I may
regrettably not make it to who I should be. I think the stress we deal with
daily has two purposes – I can either navigate it to help me find my way to
myself or to allow the troubles to drift me further away from me (who I should be)
I get reminded that I cannot truly control this journey; I can
trust God because He knows what He is doing. Yet, I am convinced I have a part
to play- it is my responsibility to make it to me. I have learned that we need
to do that every single day – there is no destination of completeness (only in
death).
I have experienced that it is easy to get overwhelmed, so we
begin to settle for activities that offer temporary relief from what we
consider troubles. But these are distractions. These supposed stressful
experiences are one of the tools that carve us into the mold we can be. We
cannot keep getting in the way and expect things will get or feel better. I
used to be so stressed out about why everything requires so much effort until I
heard someone say, ‘Effort is the path to mastery’. You cannot know how to
handle what you don’t deal with – you only become good at what you do.
Daily, (even when I have a meltdown) I practice how to have a better outlook on life and to
consistently work with the mindset that no matter what, I am being led on a
positive path to constantly unfolding a better version of myself. Who we become
is not just for personal gain; our lights will inevitably shine for others to
partake of. I would very much like to be involved in that process intentionally and maybe
even allow myself to look back sometimes and enjoy it. I want to be strong yet soft; I no longer want to be hard and stuck on how difficult things can be.
I pray for direction and the courage to not waste
opportunities, and to not try to escape from what I ought to be doing to get me
to the version I need to be per time.
