(no subject)
"Have you ever felt like you were always meant to do something in your life?" Vanessa asks Juno. Juno's dad responds, "Yes. Heating and air conditioning." Only slightly thrown-off, she accepts this and continues, "I was meant to be a mother."
With or without the debate regarding Juno's father's sincerity, it brings up the question: is there a "destiny" of sorts -real or self-imposed- that dictates a purpose or eventual [great thing one should do]? Of course I'm not arguing that it's an unavoidable fate which your life will force on you regardless of the choices you make, but a more general sense of "I've always thought that I would be super good at doing [fill in the blank.]"
When we are little, everyone wants to know what you want to "be when you grow up". Some people you asked would answer the differently every few months, driven by the whims of what caught their fancy. Other people always had that one passion that drove them- the people who drew amazing drawings effortlessly and wanted to be an artist, or the ones who wrote enchanting stories and wanted to be writers; or the ones, like Vanessa, who wanted to be a mother when they grew up.
I have always envied these people. I never had that one extraordinary talent or burning interest that gave me a plan for my future. Even now I feel that if something were to come along which happened to be more interesting than what I'm planning now, that I'd be game to ditch my plans and do that. I don't have a specific "career" in mind, but I have realized only recently that I do have definite dreams for how I want my life to be "when I grow up".
Somebody asked me a couple weeks ago where I saw myself in five years. It took me a second to respond because my plans/desires for my long-term future have always been rather fuzzy in regard to my location and direction. I responded that I wanted to be helping people. Yes, I want to be doing what I enjoy, I want to be in close contact with the people about whom I care, and I would prefer to be financially stable if I can help it. But what do I want to be *doing*? I want to help people.
In a book I read recently, a hurting girl was dealing with many issues and was attempting to repress the pain by refusing to respond to it. Not wishing to surrender her dignity, the girl was ashamed of crying, and had reacted hysterically the last time she cried, injuring her friend's sides with her grip. Her friend encouraged her to deal with it, assuring her that it's okay to storm and cry, and that she was allowed to do so as much as she liked, even if she accidentally hurt his sides while he held her. Not because it's okay for her to hurt him, but because sometimes when someone else is hurting, it takes some pain on your part to ease theirs.
I read that as I had this topic on my mind, and it seemed so appropriate. People accuse me of having low self-esteem because I seem to value other people over myself. Now I realize that it's not because I don't think that I have worth, or that that worth is inferior to the worth of other people, but because I understand that when you're helping people, you have to be willing to be the person who gets short-changed, who lends to people who can't repay, who goes last, who cuts the trail, who is willing to listen even if she doesn't get to speak her piece, who sets things up and stays late to tear them down -the person who people know will be there for them.
Obviously, I have quite a ways to go before I can be all that these things imply. Who knows if I can ever be that person before I finish growing up and die? I can never fully appreciate people as much as they deserve, and I still have a very wide selfish streak, but somehow I *do* have that motivation- that drive which tells me "even if I never see it all the way, I'm game to try as long as I am able."
"Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
-Jesus
With or without the debate regarding Juno's father's sincerity, it brings up the question: is there a "destiny" of sorts -real or self-imposed- that dictates a purpose or eventual [great thing one should do]? Of course I'm not arguing that it's an unavoidable fate which your life will force on you regardless of the choices you make, but a more general sense of "I've always thought that I would be super good at doing [fill in the blank.]"
When we are little, everyone wants to know what you want to "be when you grow up". Some people you asked would answer the differently every few months, driven by the whims of what caught their fancy. Other people always had that one passion that drove them- the people who drew amazing drawings effortlessly and wanted to be an artist, or the ones who wrote enchanting stories and wanted to be writers; or the ones, like Vanessa, who wanted to be a mother when they grew up.
I have always envied these people. I never had that one extraordinary talent or burning interest that gave me a plan for my future. Even now I feel that if something were to come along which happened to be more interesting than what I'm planning now, that I'd be game to ditch my plans and do that. I don't have a specific "career" in mind, but I have realized only recently that I do have definite dreams for how I want my life to be "when I grow up".
Somebody asked me a couple weeks ago where I saw myself in five years. It took me a second to respond because my plans/desires for my long-term future have always been rather fuzzy in regard to my location and direction. I responded that I wanted to be helping people. Yes, I want to be doing what I enjoy, I want to be in close contact with the people about whom I care, and I would prefer to be financially stable if I can help it. But what do I want to be *doing*? I want to help people.
In a book I read recently, a hurting girl was dealing with many issues and was attempting to repress the pain by refusing to respond to it. Not wishing to surrender her dignity, the girl was ashamed of crying, and had reacted hysterically the last time she cried, injuring her friend's sides with her grip. Her friend encouraged her to deal with it, assuring her that it's okay to storm and cry, and that she was allowed to do so as much as she liked, even if she accidentally hurt his sides while he held her. Not because it's okay for her to hurt him, but because sometimes when someone else is hurting, it takes some pain on your part to ease theirs.
I read that as I had this topic on my mind, and it seemed so appropriate. People accuse me of having low self-esteem because I seem to value other people over myself. Now I realize that it's not because I don't think that I have worth, or that that worth is inferior to the worth of other people, but because I understand that when you're helping people, you have to be willing to be the person who gets short-changed, who lends to people who can't repay, who goes last, who cuts the trail, who is willing to listen even if she doesn't get to speak her piece, who sets things up and stays late to tear them down -the person who people know will be there for them.
Obviously, I have quite a ways to go before I can be all that these things imply. Who knows if I can ever be that person before I finish growing up and die? I can never fully appreciate people as much as they deserve, and I still have a very wide selfish streak, but somehow I *do* have that motivation- that drive which tells me "even if I never see it all the way, I'm game to try as long as I am able."
"Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
-Jesus