Imagine you are a
rabbit on an open field. Your fur is a glossy brown, your muscles are
strong and life flows through your veins like a rowdy river. The
scent of wildflowers is so delicate yet intensely pleasant. The morning
dew still dangling from the fresh grass leaves caress your fast
limbs. There is not a cloud in the sky and the sun has just woken up
lazily. The beautiful happy melodies of many birds play with your
long and alert ears. All is perfect as you jump frolicsome with your
rabbit mates. A loud shriek cuts your
reality like a sharp sword cutting through straw. It is too late,
rapid like a locomotive in a furious march your muscles propel you
into a dash. Fear gets a hold of you, a fear like you have never
known before, the fear of losing it all, of losing life. So fast yet not
fast enough, talons pierce your soft and tender skin, the pointy end
of the beak plucks your eye out, and then death.
Sometimes, when I'm
afraid I feel this huge emptiness right on my diaphragm. The same
kind of feeling when you're in a plane and it suddenly loses a bit of
altitude during turbulence. Like the little rabbit about to die. A
sudden cold sensation, heavy uneasiness, spreads from my upper back
towards my neck. It seems as if all the air is leaving me and it
becomes hard to breath. Simply terrifying. I feel like the building
will just crumble down while I rest in bed, a hopelessness that takes
you to the edge between crying and screaming. It does not matter what
you try it seems as if you can not shake the feeling of
powerlessness.
How do you summon
strength before great adversity? How do you find courage when you are
freaking out? How do you remain coolheaded when you are losing all
that is cherished? What if everything was taking away from you; your
job, house, money, and personal belongings gone, your husband, wife,
boyfriend, or girlfriend, gone, your relatives gone forever, your
friends unreachable. Would you be afraid? How would you feel if you
wake up today knowing that you don't have any money to buy food for
lunch and your belly is already growling? How would you feel if
someone you trusted scammed you in some business and you lost all the
money you had saved and you are left in debt? How would you feel if
your better half dies or was kidnapped by FARC? How would you feel if
the person you were in love with happened to be cheating on you? How
would you feel if both of your legs had to be amputated today? How
would you feel if your child was abused sexually?
It could be so horrible
that I feel I have no right to write about this, not even mention it.
It could be so distressful that I feel scared just to type it down.
Is it even possible to remain cool and positive against such terrible
events?
When I was living in
Bogotá, during the last two and half years of university, I
experienced some level of adversity. We had no money at home, I had
not a single penny to take a bus to university. We didn't know how to
collect enough money to pay the very expensive tuition fees of the
university. I had to walk two hours a day, to go to university in the
morning and back home for lunch, then go back to class for afternoon
lessons and back home again in the evening. The sole of my shoes was
so worn out and deformed that once I took a nap after my usual walks
and when I woke up I had such a strong pain in my legs that I was not
able to walk normally for days. We reached a point were at home we
were having for lunch just rice with a couple of slices of plantain,
absolutely nothing else. The lack of money also isolated me from my
friends, since I didn't have a way to pay for a beer or for the bus
to meet them. My father told me he was not going to aid me
economically if I went to private university. Besides that, I was
lonely, I had passed teenagehood and I had yet to kiss a girl, I had
yet to hold hands with a girl. I felt I could not be loved by any
woman. My self-esteem was at the lowest possible level. I thought
life sucked, I thought life was unfair. I was unable to see all the
riches and abundance that surrounded me even during the hardest days;
such as my own life and the best education possible in Colombia. I
had a very pessimistic outlook on life. I was so confused and in so
much pain.
Things changed. I moved
to Sweden to start my PhD, that was a huge boost to my confidence. I
was getting paid a fair salary so money was plentiful. I started
meeting a lot of people and I lost my virginity. I put a lot of
effort into changing my way of thinking, but surely the favorable
conditions facilitated it. Next thing I knew, being positive and
having and optimistic outlook seemed so obvious, it came so naturally
easy. I felt like no obstacle was insurmountable, like nothing could
hurt me or made me kneel before the challenges of life. I felt so
strong, I believed that my strength originated from my amazing
personality, insight, and wisdom, and not just from the fact that I
had money and access to everything I wanted, and the validation of
friends and women.
One day I wondered
whether my strength was real strength coming from within, from my own
inner value, or if it was just an illusion of the circumstances. If I
peeled away all the layers, friends, financial stability, a
professional occupation, the support of my family, what would be
left? If everything was taken away from me all of a sudden, would I
break? Would I be depressed? Would I be angry and desperate?
I think true inner
strength originates from two qualities: self-knowledge and patience.
Self-knowledge in the
form of knowing what you are really worth, unbiased by the
availability of material resources, unbiased by the validation from
people around you. If I lose all my friends, am I capable of making
new ones? If I lose my girlfriend, do I know I am able to love again
and be loved in return? If I lose all the money, do I know I am able
to make some more? Do I understand that it does not matter how bad it
could get, I will never be alone and there will always be someone by
my side? If my legs get amputated and my wife left me because of it,
am I sure that my friends will never abandon me? Am I sure I will be
able to find someone that loves me beyond my crippled body?
Patience in the form of
knowing that no evil or unfair circumstance will last a lifetime,
that any obstacle can be overcome, that every hardship can be
withstood. Solace can be found in the realization that one second
will follow another, that time will never cease to move forward, that
there is no shame in beginning again, that we can recover from any
blow life throw at us. Impatience is such a woeful quality, it is the
source of every bad decision we could make, I have said it before in
another post. In my personal case, for example, I've been waiting for
almost four months to begin my new job, delays after delays, and
expense after expense have left me broke. It is not just me who has
to withstand this but at the same time I must take care of four
month's of my mothers rents and bills. It's impossible not to feel
sometimes that at any moment things will go wrong, which is simply
maddening. The only way to fight this hopelessness is by being
patient and doing everything at the right time. If I become impatient
and decide to submit a visa application without really fulfilling all
the requirements as it should be, I would most certainly get the visa
rejected and thus I would lose the job possibility with all the
consequences that would bring. It happens to people all the time.
Knowing your worth will
be your shield, patience will be your sword. Combined they will be
your true strength, the true strength of your heart. That is my recipe
to remain calm on the face of the great perils of life.
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