an email that I never read

(forgive me blog for ignoring you...i will admit tumblr was too tempting...)


Sometime ago, I wrote an email to a friend asking a very specific question. It was one of those questions that keeps you up at night to your utmost inconvenience and furthermore, one of those questions that you remember the morning after. So, almost naturally, I decided to consult one of my more prone-to-educational-debates-and-explorations type of friends whom I considered an excellent resource in this particular field. It took a little bit of time to get a response, but I did get one, and a lengthy one at that. Unfortunately I was, as I have a habit of being, consumed by commitments and all the time that I would have given up for personal philosophical research was devoted elsewhere. So, as the email prompted, I waited for time to delve into the message and gain some educational insight. I don’t know why, but I suddenly remembered that email today, as I sit in a close friends’ apartment doing laundry by myself. Well the heathen (Benji) is here as well but he’s not very good company when one has something specific to do in mind. After trying to figure out how to search for it in my mostly organized but definitely burgeoning inbox (Yes I did finally realize I should just search with the sender’s email…’duh bam’ I know right?!) I started to skim through and try to remember what it was that had prompted my question in the first place. I still have to do a more in-depth reading as well as some research into a few things for which the details are hazy in my mind, but when I reached the end, I came across a surprise. A little extra that had been added in, that up until now I hadn’t even begun to consider. I can say that I was honestly happy and honored by this section of the email and I am in fact smiling at the moment but it made me pause at the same time.

Pause to think about my own inquisitiveness, and the natural services I believe I extend towards others in this world. (Get your head out of the gutters you know who you are.)

Pause to consider for a second what an acceptance of this proposal might mean for myself.

Pause to think about how things are going for me right now, actually how they’ve been going for me my whole life and before that.

And I’ve started to think that I’m perfectly fine with where I am. Now I know that sounds stubborn but hear me out. What I mean to say is that I am perfectly fine with the pace at which I am learning, discovering and evolving (semi-ironic if you can even begin to guess what the subject matter is) in my life. Everyday, despite the challenges I face I know that there is a force for good that has been present in my life and I’m, at risk of understating myself, eternally grateful. I am also perfectly fine with the rate at which my outward profession of my beliefs is progressing.

And why?

Because I’ve noticed that more often than not, when people I am getting close to open up to me about a few of the things they think I’ve done for them (because we all know my opinion on this sort of thinking) I am told that something interesting. You all know, I’m certain, that when you begin to have your own opinion about something, or get an itch in the back of your head for a particular subject, the easiest and most natural step to take first is to seek out a path or route to let this thought follow. I think it’s fairly safe to say that almost immediately we start to think of people whom we know who either seem to share our affinity, or who seem to have some knowledge of it. What people seem to say to me (A LOT) is that they enjoy that I can be casual about certain topics and not overbearing. But they also enjoy that upon simple questioning, I’m more than willing to discuss.

Now if we’re all searching for a purpose in life, then I can honestly say I hope that being a conduit for personal growth for OTHER PEOPLE is up there on my list. If you know me like I hope you do, then you should understand that I want nothing more than to help others. Sometimes that works out for me too, and sometimes it doesn’t but that part of it hardly seems to matter most of the time. Aside from searching for a purpose, I’ve been raised to believe in other people and have faith that if we all help each other out, even just a tad, the world can and will be a better place.

So hopefully, after all this you won’t believe that I’m being complacent, stubborn, lazy or indignant. I’m simply content with the ways in which I’m learning to live life. I should say that in the past few years my rate of growth has increased exponentially (side note: that is one of my FAVORITE words in the English language) and so have the opportunities I have been granted to help influence the lives of others.

I guess if I think about it, I’m already doing some of what’s been proposed to me. I have the rest of my life to keep learning, growing, giving and humbling myself to receive and I look forward to it. I know that there’s so much more that I need to learn, but I learned full well from my own failures, that if I force myself to learn things too quickly or when I’m not quite ready the lessons don’t stick and I end up losing a big part of the message being sent my way. It’s not that I’m playing it safe, well I suppose it does sound like that, but I think that right now, the best thing I can do and the right thing for me to do is to keep growing the way I have been. I really do think that both paths proposed (the first by myself and the second by my friend the expert =D) will lead me to the same fulfilled and blessed life that I’m hoping for.

And with nothing left for me to say or explain, I guess I just want to say that while change is good, sometimes it means thinking about how we deal with what is new in our lives and changing that instead. This isn’t me attempting to send the message that ‘sometimes no is the best answer’ because I hardly believe that life can be so black and white. But I do believe that everyone’s life experience is different and so life should be thought out and lived uniquely by everyone. And that can segue into a whole new debate but that’s for another time I think.

<3bam

p.s. I know at times I can be hard headed and stubborn, as we all can be, but this time I really have thought about it and feel that this is the course of action for me. Think of it as a toned-down version of the alternate, a slower but equally deliberate course.