Words of Wisdom

“The important thing is not to be bitter over life’s disappointments. Learn to let go of the past. And recognize that every day won’t be sunny, and when you find yourself lost in the darkness and despair remember it’s only in the black of night you see the stars. And those stars will lead you back home. So don’t be afraid to make mistakes, or stumble and fall, cause most of the time the greatest rewards come from doing the things that scare you the most. Maybe you’ll get everything you wish for. Maybe you’ll get more than you ever could have imagined. Who knows where life will take you. The road is long and in the end, the journey is the destination.” --Whitey Durham

There has been much in life that I've been disappointed over, mostly to do with how situations have panned out or how things have not gone my way. But I've been learning slowly over the years that life rarely ever goes the way you plan for it to. Things happen, disasters change your path, and you wind up in a completely different place than you set out to be in the first place. But does that mean that you've failed somehow? Or that you didn't wind up exactly where you were supposed to be all along? I never really thought that I would wind up majoring in Psychology, but through  the experiences of my youth, I was lead to a profession that would help others through their darkest times because that is what was given to me in my own dark times.

During times of depression when I was younger, I found myself looking at the stars a lot. Sometimes I would go outside and lay on my trampoline for hours, just looking up at the sky and wondering if there was a point to my suffering. Or if it was all mindless and had no reason at all for happening other than the random assignment of life to people. It wasn't until I got to college and started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life that I realized that everything I had gone through in my teenage years had a purpose. Those same stars that I looked at as a teenager were the ones that gave me the time to think about what I wanted to do with my life. So, in a way, they lead me home to where I was meant to be.

I think that Whitey was right in saying that life is full of disappointments, but it's better to learn to let go of the past to move on with our lives, treating the past as a lesson learned. The past is part of the journey that we're on and that is the important thing to remember. Journeys are not all about the destination, but rather the time it takes to get there and the paths you take to end up where you're going. I've been down some pretty twisted paths in my 23 years of life. Lots of them were dark and scary and not like any you'd ever want to go down as a normal person. The roads of depression and despair are not pretty to go down, but coming out on the other side is like...waking up to a new life. It isn't always easy, but it's a lot better. I've made mistakes, but I've learned from them and taught myself that it's okay to make those mistakes so long as I learn from them. Granted, I'm still learning, but I'm only 23. There's gonna be lots of times when I fail, but picking myself up from it is what's important.