Creating Peace

Future Steps

The next "step up" in life I mused over today reads as follows:

Climbing mountains, building bridges, letting go, learning to forgive, loving deeply, developing and expanding skills, learning new skills, falling repeatedly, standing up repeatedly, finding my voice

One of my favorite quotations fits in nicely here. I found it on a bookmark (which I bought and still have) at a College Bookstore sale on my first day at the University of Utah. I bought it because it summed up the previous five years of my life so perfectly. It read, "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall - Confucious."

I had literally failed multiple classes at Salt Lake Community College, during difficult times of financial or emotional stress. I would then proceed to return later semesters, sign up for the classes again, and keep plowing through as best I could. I re-took Statistics and earned a B the second time, one of my best mathematics grades of all time. But how could I have known I was capable of that at the end of the semester I failed at it?

I worked many part-time jobs, and bumbled through relationship troubles, family drama, and religious turmoil. Yet somehow, four years following my high school graduation, I found myself on the peaceful, serenely quiet U of U campus, enrolled in Intro to Linguistics and enjoying the beautiful month of May. It was the ultimate symbolic moment of my life up to that point.

I had failed and fallen so many times over those past four years, and yet here I was! Graduated with a two-year Associate Degree and enrolled in a University program I was passionate about, ready to learn, ready to take on the world.

But mostly, I had learned enough up to that point to know that I would fall again. That this peace wouldn't last, and that I would possibly have to re-take classes here too. I knew it wouldn't be smooth, easy sailing.

But I had proven to myself that no matter how hard I fell, or how convincingly I told myself I was a failure, there was a stubborn streak in me that would continue to pick myself back up. I knew I would cry and move on. That life would continue to be hard, but would also periodically provide me moments of pristine joy and hope, just like this breezy, spectacular summer day. I earned my first (and only) 4.0 that summer semester - taking one single Intro to Linguistics course and focusing entirely on my studies for those three months.

2007 was also when I became a youth mentor for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and began my path of volunteerism by becoming involved in student groups (starting a few of my own) and truly starting to find my voice.

The next step up I see is:

Speaking up and coming out against injustice and apathy; crying; healing; laughing; running; finding release and relaxation alongside healthy doses of striving toward happiness

These are now aspirations, goals, and hopes in my life today . . . they aren't steps I've necessarily "taken," or places at which I think I have "arrived." I have begun to speak up and come out against injustice, but I will be continually learning how to do that effectively for the rest of my life! Just like for the rest of my life I will be crying, healing, laughing, running, releasing, relaxing, and striving. But the steps as I see them continue:

Recognizing happiness as peace rather than striving; solidifying learned work ethic, skills, and relationships into security and stability

This is, I believe, the real leaf I feel has been turned by being offered and accepting this full-time position this week. Suddenly, my life work is solidifying into something financially secure. But, sort of like I knew that day in May at the University of Utah that I would probably fall again and have to pick myself back up . . . I feel that 10 years from now, I will likely look back at my 28-year-old musings and laugh: "Ha! I thought that full-time benefited position was a solidifying of my work ethic and skills into security and stability?? Actually the job and family I have now are the true measure of all that. I didn't know what I was talking about at all!"

But, I hope I can take this next step:

Striving to bring that security and stability to others; teaching; learning; growing

Those are the verbs I never want to stop doing. And these:

Climbing; falling; belaying; trusting

What is the verb for being supported by someone who is belaying you? Being supported, I guess . . . because through all of these "steps" I've been mulling over today, you may notice I say something about "others" and "relationships" quite often. And that seems to be the key thread through everything I'm learning as I'm growing up. It all seems to lead here:

Seeking arrival at "success" only to learn that success is relative and fleeting; embracing change; creating simplicity, happiness, and peace.