My Greatest Lesson in Life
“Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~ Bernice Johnson Reagon
One of the greatest things I have learned is the ability of the human spirit to grow stronger through failure. After graduating high school and through my early twenties my goal in life was to get by with as little effort as possible. This was true of academics, sports, art, and so on. I didn’t fail at anything; I just skated by in life. It wasn’t until I failed miserably at life that I actually learned something important. This all hit me while I drove from to the Bay Area from Los Angeles, coming back home to live with my parents. I had just spent the previous five months hopping from couch to couch, with no money, debts mounting up, miserable, seeing my life go nowhere but downward, at times sleeping in my car, knowing people I shouldn’t, and truly and honestly not caring about life. In retrospect, I can say I had hit rock bottom, but it is because of this failure that I can say today that I am driven for success, not in the monetary sense, but in a sense of self-worth and the worth to those around me. All of a sudden, I cared about my life with vigor and enthusiasm. How can I grow, learn, and contribute to society? That was when I decided to go back to school. I always loved to learn, I just didn’t give it very much effort. I now understand the incredible value of effort. Without effort nothing truly valuable will be gained. So I hit the books hard. Surrounding myself with the readings of Dickenson, Emerson, Whitman, Hughes, I learned about the human condition; I learned that failure is something everyone goes through; and I learned that I was a better person because of my “L.A. experience.” I realize the importance of learning from failures and using them as a driving force to be a better person.
This night drive back from Los Angeles was quite the emotional moment, which cannot be put into words. Another thing that occurred to me during my night drive up I-5 was the concept of selfishness. I was convinced that I was never a selfish person. Nothing could have been far from the truth. I was only out to serve myself and never thought about others. It was all about me. “I” wanted not to work, so I was lazy at work; “I” wanted to choose my job, so I was homeless; “I” wanted to get decent grades but still party, so I received mostly Bs and some Cs. Today, nothing could be more satisfying than giving back to others. This could be as simple as sharing a poem to a friend whom I think would find inspiring or uplifting, to teaching young people the value of art, and to engaging in critical discussion about the meaning of a short story with my parents and classmates. In the end, sharing with others only enriches my life.
I no longer skate by in life with as little effort as possible. Instead, I take life and tackle it’s greatest difficulties. How can I contribute to society and become a better person? Where is my greatest weakness and how can I grow as a human being? Life is difficult and I learned that the hard way. Yet once I learned this vital lesson, I do not just accept the difficulties, I seek after them. My greatest advancements, not just in academia but also in life, have come as a result of my greatest difficulties. I am currently in the hardest moment of my life: working full time while taking classes, continuing my love for art and photography, and inspiring and teaching others about all forms of art (visual and non-visual). While I am not suggesting that everyone needs to have such a dismal failure in life to grow and learn, my failure (or rather my learning from my great failure) has made me an exponentially greater and richer person.
In a way, the way I use my failure to drive my success reminds me of Sherman Alexie’s character Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Thomas is a storyteller and, like most Native American Indians, he has a painful past. His father died fighting for a country that tried to kill him and his mother died giving birth to him. Yet the pain of these memories does not confuse and consume Thomas. Instead of wandering in search of his identity, the pain seems to make his purpose more clear; he uses the pain of his past as a driving force for his measured determination. I too use my past to motive my future successes.
One of the greatest things I have learned is the ability of the human spirit to grow stronger through failure. After graduating high school and through my early twenties my goal in life was to get by with as little effort as possible. This was true of academics, sports, art, and so on. I didn’t fail at anything; I just skated by in life. It wasn’t until I failed miserably at life that I actually learned something important. This all hit me while I drove from to the Bay Area from Los Angeles, coming back home to live with my parents. I had just spent the previous five months hopping from couch to couch, with no money, debts mounting up, miserable, seeing my life go nowhere but downward, at times sleeping in my car, knowing people I shouldn’t, and truly and honestly not caring about life. In retrospect, I can say I had hit rock bottom, but it is because of this failure that I can say today that I am driven for success, not in the monetary sense, but in a sense of self-worth and the worth to those around me. All of a sudden, I cared about my life with vigor and enthusiasm. How can I grow, learn, and contribute to society? That was when I decided to go back to school. I always loved to learn, I just didn’t give it very much effort. I now understand the incredible value of effort. Without effort nothing truly valuable will be gained. So I hit the books hard. Surrounding myself with the readings of Dickenson, Emerson, Whitman, Hughes, I learned about the human condition; I learned that failure is something everyone goes through; and I learned that I was a better person because of my “L.A. experience.” I realize the importance of learning from failures and using them as a driving force to be a better person.
This night drive back from Los Angeles was quite the emotional moment, which cannot be put into words. Another thing that occurred to me during my night drive up I-5 was the concept of selfishness. I was convinced that I was never a selfish person. Nothing could have been far from the truth. I was only out to serve myself and never thought about others. It was all about me. “I” wanted not to work, so I was lazy at work; “I” wanted to choose my job, so I was homeless; “I” wanted to get decent grades but still party, so I received mostly Bs and some Cs. Today, nothing could be more satisfying than giving back to others. This could be as simple as sharing a poem to a friend whom I think would find inspiring or uplifting, to teaching young people the value of art, and to engaging in critical discussion about the meaning of a short story with my parents and classmates. In the end, sharing with others only enriches my life.
I no longer skate by in life with as little effort as possible. Instead, I take life and tackle it’s greatest difficulties. How can I contribute to society and become a better person? Where is my greatest weakness and how can I grow as a human being? Life is difficult and I learned that the hard way. Yet once I learned this vital lesson, I do not just accept the difficulties, I seek after them. My greatest advancements, not just in academia but also in life, have come as a result of my greatest difficulties. I am currently in the hardest moment of my life: working full time while taking classes, continuing my love for art and photography, and inspiring and teaching others about all forms of art (visual and non-visual). While I am not suggesting that everyone needs to have such a dismal failure in life to grow and learn, my failure (or rather my learning from my great failure) has made me an exponentially greater and richer person.
In a way, the way I use my failure to drive my success reminds me of Sherman Alexie’s character Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Thomas is a storyteller and, like most Native American Indians, he has a painful past. His father died fighting for a country that tried to kill him and his mother died giving birth to him. Yet the pain of these memories does not confuse and consume Thomas. Instead of wandering in search of his identity, the pain seems to make his purpose more clear; he uses the pain of his past as a driving force for his measured determination. I too use my past to motive my future successes.
posted by nathan at
4:24 PM
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