Thursday, September 8, 2011

My life goes like this...

So I go to my afternoon English class. Afterward, I plan to get a coffee at the little CCs booth. They are closed. So I drive to CCs in River Ranch. I order my coffee in the drive-thru and when I go to pay...I realize I don't have my wallet. I start to panic cause I distinctively remember putting it in my backpack. I calm myself down by telling myself that it wasn't in my backpack. I tell myself that it's at home.

I go home. Nope, it isn't there. Sooooo I lost it somewhere between where I park and where I go to class. I picked up my daughter from child care and she came with me to look for it, stroller and all. This happens to me often. I lose my wallet and phone often. The wallet, I always find. The phone was stolen once.

I'm pushing a stroller on campus (as if I don't look old enough) and running through my head how many cards I would need to cancel if I don't find my wallet. THANK GOD it was still in my English class on the floor. I mean really, I've got to stop doing this. It's a total waste of time to have hunt down something I lost. My husband thinks I'm lucky to always find it and is sure my luck will run out. I don't believe in luck. Only fate. And faith. I believe whatever is supposed to be will be, even if I can't see the purpose with my rational mind. For whatever reason, I was supposed to be chasing down my wallet today. And I always have faith that things will turn out okay. Law of attraction.

The wallet thing is one example of how my life goes. I also live by signs. You may know them as coincidences. I don't believe in coincidences. I think everything that happens to us, no matter how minute it may seem is placed in our path for a reason. I've trained my brain to stay atuned to these signs. I'll give an example.

I write reflections on Sunday mass. I attend mass to hear the sermon. It always has something in it meant for something in my life that I need. One Sunday I wrote about how we as humans are supposed to go through pain and bear it. Not run from it or pray for it to disappear but to bear our cross and pray for strength.

Sometime during that week, I was struggling in my math class. I went to see my professor for help. Of course I'm completely aggravated with math and myself. He said something to me that really stayed with me. It's supposed to be hard. Pain is absolutely necessary to learn. That ties into what I was reflecting on Sunday.

I never connected pain with learning before. The fact is, I never thought of learning as hard. Not in a school setting anyway. Everything I've ever done has always come easy to me. So I always looked at school as not a place to "learn" but a place to showcase how "smart" I was. Maybe the correct word is 'am' because I do it now in real estate classes. Let me backtrack and correct myself. Not everything came easily to me in school. I remember once in junior high, we had to build a rocket. I let someone else build mine. In high school, I couldn't draw to save my life in the visual arts portion of fine arts so I let someone else draw my work.

I still do the same things today. If it doesn't come easy to me, I simply don't do it. My better half does those things for me (computer repair stuff, website maintenance, manual labor, etc) cause that's what he's good at.

I did believe people when they would say college is 'hard'. But what I thought was hard was the time it took to complete. I never really expected to struggle in any of my classes. I felt like a complete dumb ass for struggling in math because I'm supposed to be good at math. According to me anyway. I like math. I always thought it was pretty cool that I was really good at English/History yet excelled in math. Typically, you have one or the other.

A friend's husband helped tutor me...to which I can't be more grateful cause I'm finally understanding what it is that I'm looking at when I sit down to do math homework. He also told me that it's supposed to be hard. But I kept thinking still, "But not for me. It's not supposed to be hard for me. I'm supposed to be good at this."

My professor told me one day that my ego is getting in the way. I never thought of myself as having a big ego. I'm conceited, yes. But pretty open-minded.

There's a point to all this info. It's late and I'm wired up on coffee so I'm not doing a good job of tying it all together.

So one day I read this.... WE ARE A PROCESS, AND THE KEY TO LIVING THAT PROCESS IS LEARNING. EVERYTHING IN OUR LIVES IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR LEARNING. OFTEN, OUR MOST PAINFUL EXPERIENCES OPEN DOORS THAT MUST BE OPENED BEFORE WE CAN TAKE OUR NEXT STEPS. GREAT TEACHERS ARE PLACED IN OUR PATH. THE LESSONS THEY TEACH US ARE VASTLY IMPORTANT, AND THEY ARE TAUGHT THROUGH STRUGGLE, PAIN, TRIAL AND TRIBULATION.

It made me think of my professor and his emphasis on pain. So I shared it with him. He thought there was one thing missing....humility. When I read that word, I was speechless. At the time I couldn't explain why but I was.

The next day I read this.....A NEW IDEA OF ONE’S SELF OR ONE’S RELATION TO OTHERS UNSETTLES ALL ONE’S OTHER IDEAS, EVEN THE SUPERFICIALLY RELATED ONES. NO MATTER HOW SLIGHTLY, IT SHIFTS ONE’S ENTIRE ORIENTATION

THAT was exactly how I felt when I read that word humility. I do have a big ego. I get in my own way. I think I'm so smart that I don't allow myself to struggle with things I am 'supposed' to have a grip on. It's true for school, my emotions, my work...everything.

So that's how my life goes. Everything I need always comes to me. Whether it's information, signs, a lost item, a person, a commission to pay a bill, etc it's there. I think that rings true for everyone. The trick is to recognize it as something you need rather than what you wanted or expected.

2 comments:

  1. Let me interject! I don't think your ego is too big! I think it is necessary to have some ego, or else you wouldn't be able to deal with the people that try to tear you down when they perceive you to be weak.
    I totally understand the whole, "this should be easy for me", way of thinking. That used to be me. I can say that as I have grown as a person and an adult, I see so many talented, intelligent, and really kind people out there and I feel very inadequate. Life is a learning experience and we never learn unless we strive. Call it pain, call it experience, the contrast makes it worth it, at least to me ;D
    Great blog by the way!

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  2. You should not feel inadequate. You are one of the smartest and talented people I know. And I'm jealous of your vocabulary. :-)

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