How do these things happen?
How does anything happen? People live their lives, day to day, things comes things go...why? This question became more real for me as I sat in my CNA (nurse's assistant) course and thought about why each of us ladies was there. It became more real for me as I complained to my parents about this or that and they chided, "In my day." It became more real more me when my UWC friends, so used to be rewarded for their intellect, ideals and hard work, found it hard to find a job after college. It made me think about my own life and how I've gotten where I've gotten.I've always felt like a "not-normal" (not necessarily abnormal) person. My most recent Myer-Briggs personality test told me I'm an ENFJ and when I looked up "where i should be living" according to my personality type, they told me Quebec (hehe), French-speaking Belgium and Greenland -- all examples of a minority culture.
My mom says she knows we're born with personalities. She ran a daycare for me when I was a baby and she saw how different each and every one of those six month old bundles was. I'm not going to get into a nature vs. nurture discussion here...at least not deeplyf...but I do just want to acknowledge that people are born with differences.
That "difference" is what I always accounted my success to until...mmmm...Whitman, probably. I had worked hard. I was happy. I was nice. I was smart. I didn't do drugs. Yay me. Boy, I deserve every gold star I get. And you know what? I did. I did work hard. I was kind and happy and hard working. In middle school, I really was an exceptional young person. Those things deserve to be rewarded, and so often they are, especially for people like me.
But, that's only half of the equation. I also always had food on the table, a warm bed, loving parents, plenty of time to play and a safe environment. I got to be that kid I was born to be; little was holding me back. Had some aspect of my environment been different, I too would likely be very very different.
So, as I was sitting in my nurse's assistant course, seeing the single moms and the younger girls, remembering how I had spoken about medical school and not my dogs, I thought about how I had gotten to that point. Everything has worked in my favor. Sure, I haven't gotten everything I've ever wanted, I've certainly been rejected, but mostly, I've been lucky. Lucky.
I don't know how much of anybody's life can be attributed to luck or timing, but I think a lot can. Sure, we are all autonomous agents, responsible for our actions and perspectives. I believe strongly in that. I also know you can only control your half and what other people or the universe make of what you put out cannot be controlled by you.
It's humbling to think about how I can only control half of any equation. It's scary and its humbling. It's scary to realize that I could work hard my whole life and then lose it all in an instant. Thinking about the diseases that grip so many of the elderly these days and how all that those people were flies out the window when they sign the residency agreement at a nursing home. It's humbling to realize that maybe I'm not so great, that likely I've just gotten a lot of longer ends of the stick.
It's also exciting. If I had to be responsible, 100% responsible for everything, that would be a lot of pressure and perhaps my imagination and creativity wouldn't take me half as far as the imagination and creativity of whatever it is that's controlling that other half.
So who knows what's going to happen next or why. I'll do what I can to get where I think I want to go. After that, it's anyone's guess.
posted by Marielly @ 3:24 PM
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