at a crossroads
I am nearing another crossroad in my life and large decisions have never really been my forte. I will need to start looking for jobs soon, a real career which is almost too overwhelming to think about in and of itself. I will have my own health insurance, and to me this is an insane concept. Now I need to decide where to apply for jobs. Really the whole world (well, at least the country. . . a speech language pathologist who doesn't speak the language would be pretty useless) is open to me but I don't know where to go. Every other time I've reached one of these crossroads, I've taken what ultimately was the easy route of staying here. I'm not saying I regret these decisions, they've made me who I am today and allowed me to meet the people I have met along the way. It is crazy to think how much these decisions shape our lives. Had I gone somewhere else for college or grad school I would know completely different people and had a completely different experience. There are friends who I've made along the way who I couldn't imagine my life without, yet had i gone somewhere else, I would just have different friends who I would most likely feel the same way about. Is there such thing as fate driving what happens to us? And if so is it possible to miss our fate? What if I make the wrong decision about where to go from here and miss something wonderful that would have happened. but if it's really fate it will happen anyway, right? Or defaulting to fate just the way I rationalize decision making to take some of the pressure off. If I had to think to seriously about the reprecussions of every decision I make and how much it has the potential to shape my future that would seem too overwhelming as well. . . so it's easier to chalk it up to fate and discard the sense of responsiblity. I was told not that long ago that it is kind of pathetic that I've lived in the same place my whole life. It really got to me, and I really started agreeing, and feeling like this time I need to be brave enough to venture out. Everyone seems to think it'd be good for me. If my friends can all move to different countries, surely I could handle a new zip code. But I also think, what is so tragic about living here. I like it here, I have friends here, why do I need to leave all that? Just to prove that I can? I don't know where these next few months will take me, the job market may have more to say about it than I do. And if I do meet someone fall in love and live happily ever after wherever I end up, will I credit fate? There must have been a reason life brought me to that place, or is it all just chance? Whatever role fate may or may not play we are still in charge of our own destinies, we all have free will. . . I'm just not always sure what to do with it.
posted by tara @ 10:59 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Hello Tara! Thank you for sharing your thoughts in this nice blog.
I wanna tell you my oppinion about fate: BULLSHIT You are completely right. It´s a way that our brains use to feel better about having to take important decisions. So you could decide to follow that artificial "defense tool" or to wake up a fight againt The Matrix.
Kisses from a friend of a friend.. :)
Tara,
Can I please just say this. Anything worth doing in life is not easy. For example, relationships are obviously one of the toughest challenges in life, but they are worth doing. Venturing into the unknown, whether it's a new location, a new job, etc., is going to be immensely difficult, but so worth it.
As for fate, it's funny you wrote about it because I have really been trying to delve into this question as well. It's like, the more you think about it, the more questions, rather than answers, arise. I was talking to a girl about a month ago, who is from Toronto, Canada, and she brought up the subject of fate versus free will. She doesn't believe in free will. There are circumstances that you have no choice/control over which affects the rest of your life. For example, her ancestors are from India, and she looks Indian. Because of this, she has had to give 120% effort in everything she does, while most white Canadians only have to give 80%. When trying to find an English teaching job overseas, many directors from the schools did not want to hire her because they believed she couldn't speak English as well as a white Canadian, even though she was born and raised in Toronto. She never chose to be born Indian, but because of that, she is given fewer opportunities and not as many choices in life. Or, let's say for example, since I saw this on Oprah, that your father molested and raped you as a child. You weren't given a choice, since you don't get to choose who your parents are, or what they do to you when you are that young. She told her mother, who ignored it, and she had no one else to tell. Because of what her father had done to her, she now can't ever have that human contact with another person and feel safe. She doesn't even allow her husband to sleep in the same room as her. She doesn't even allow her dog to be in the same room as her. Did she choose to have this life? Of course not. It was beyond her control. When I think of free will, I believe we can't change our circumstances (who are parents are, what race, sex, sexual orientation, etc.), but the one thing we do have free will over is our perception. You can play victim to the events that have happened in your life, or you can choose to be strong and move on. Does that mean forget and forgive the people or things that have happened to you? No. But it's about not letting those things affect your future. You can choose to let the things in the past ruin you, or you can say, I'm not going to let it take me, and evolve and make the future better. Like you said in another post, you can choose to be happy or not.
Also, about you getting out of your current location, only you can answer what is right for you. No one knows you better than you. You don't have to prove anything to anyone but yourself. My mom has a quote hanging in her house, and it says, "Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved." Try and think of life as a mystery and live in it rather than trying to figure it out. That's what makes life interesting, not having all the answers and discovering answers by living life rather than just thinking about it.
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