A little over two years ago I met one of the most
influential friends of my adult life. I didn't know it at the time and it took
me a few months to reacquaint myself with my newest life-lesson mentor. Had I known the ride in store for me I would've been a lot less dern' enthusiastic and given them the stink eye. Harrumph!
"He said the most valuable thing I could do was to meet as many people as I could[...] because behind every one of those faces was a different take on a vast world. He thought that understanding that and living that was the best way to be liberally educated."
-Michael Hawley
An education was about to arrive on my doorstep dressed up
in shorts, a t-shirt and a stubborn personality more difficult than the set-in
stain caused by my Easter egg dying misadventure. My intuition told me it was inevitable to resist from the moment I set eyes on my
newest friend, I must, had-to, and simply insisted to burrow my way into a
friendship that would find me flummoxed, challenged, exhausted and entirely grateful. My
friend is a difficult person to get close to being hardened by life’s
challenges. Prone to adrenaline and pushing their body to the edge of its physical
limits, they are no stranger to developing mental and physical strength to
conquer anything. A trait I deeply admire and simultaneously apprehensive over, for
their safety seems always an afterthought.
I always fancied myself a fairly kicked-back yet ambitious
person who attended the school-of-hard-knocks far more than my fair share of
years and consequently became something of a tough but driven and empathetic soul. I
follow my intuition to a fault and on occasion it has led me astray. It has
also given me a set of principles, marathon-level tenacity and an uncanny ability to see to the
core of a person to figure out what makes them tick. For my friend, this proved
invaluable in deciphering the life philosophy of a floater, a renegade from the
culture and norms of the place in which we live. No matter how I tried I could
not wrap my mind around their world. My frustration and patience
grew thin. Why couldn't my friend be like everyone else? This description should serve as a suitable background for understanding the education I was about to receive.
The years grew on and by some miracle I gained a trusted
confidante. Their take on the world began to fit together for me in pieces of lessons: No matter what happens to you in life, you are in charge of who you
become and of how you react to your circumstances. The next piece: You are free
to choose the life that will make you happiest. The magnum opus: “I’m sorry you feel that way.” I have never been so livid! How dare anyone be so callous and final! Worst sentence ever... until the final piece of comprehension came in a months long battle of wills; the lesson that makes my
friend tick: I held the power to make me happy. Once I brushed off my slightly bruised ego, I took one wobbly step forward choosing to let the small things roll off my back that could get me down. The next step choosing to start my difficult days saying they were the
best day and setting off to make it happen. I began walking along looking at what
I was creating for myself. I’m on a voyage to discover the courage to be happy in
spite of all that works to bring us down; like my friend who had the patience to teach
me being true to yourself means to find happiness within yourself, even if you
stand alone. In the challenging moments I found at letting my troubles
go, I grew to learn happiness comes from within. My friend's lessons couldn't be told or shown by example. They could only be learned by doing. Suddenly life-in-limbo
wasn't melancholy anymore and I got about living the rest of my life. I find
happiness and joy in others even more than before now. I know my friend will say I've
gone and twisted one person’s life philosophy for survival into some grand
optimistic life motto it wasn't intended to be- but hey- they’re full of all
sorts of wisdom I’m good at exploiting. I’m just a bright little ray of sunshine like that.
My friend is no less difficult than the day we met.
“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.”
― Richard Dawkins
