There’s no denying that the environment you live in shapes you. It applies to humans as much as it applies to fire (The image below shows the shape of a flame on Earth and that in space).
The problem with us is we attach our sense of worth to many superficial items; our jobs, our net worth, our possessions, our weight…
But when the majority of those things are stripped away from you, you’re left with who you are at the core, and what your values are.
And sometimes it takes a lot to remind yourself this:
“You is kind you is smart you is important.” – Aibileen Clark, The Help
Because at your lowest point, people have a bad habit of reminding you of how they’re doing much better than you. They also have a bad habit of taking advantage of you, and it doesn’t matter if they’re strangers or family.
In the previous article, I wrote about how you have two things that are within your control – your time and energy – and where you spend them determines the direction your life is going to take.
I could have easily spent my time and energy locked in my room, with my nose burrowed in books.
In fact, when I first landed, I did that.
A lot.
It was my form of denial.
“This is where I go, when I go:
It’s a room with no windows and no doors, and walls that are thin enough for me to see and hear everything but too thick to break through.
I’m there, but I’m not there.
This is where I go, when I go:
To the place where my body becomes a piano full of black keys only—the sharps and the flats, when everyone know that to play a song other people want to hear, you need some white keys.
This is why I come back:
To find those white keys.” ― Jodi Picoult, House Rules
This was written to explain what it felt like to have Asperger’s Syndrome in a normal world, but everyone who’s ever felt like a misfit who never belonged anywhere would relate.
When you’re too Arab for the Africans…too African for the Arabs…too liberal for the conservatives…too conservative for the liberals…too academic for corporations…too corporate for academia…
It’s so much easier to just shut yourself in.
Until one evening, my mom walked into my room and said, “You’re always in your room. Why don’t you sit with us?”
Between the lines, what she really meant was, “It’s like you never came back.”
And maybe there was a part of me that never did.
But at some point, you realize you need to get out of the rut you’re in and do something worthwhile with your life because every minute you spend not trying to improve your situation is a minute you’re letting people down… everyone who spent time teaching you, supporting you, believing in you, making sacrifices for you.
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas
Think about it, you’re told to go to school, get a degree, get a good job, save up for retirement….
But a proper education must empower you to not only dream of a world you imagine in your mind, but give you the tools to go out and build it.
So where does someone like me start?
“I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief