Friday, October 16, 2015

Perspectives

It has been a very long time since I've posted anything here so as I lay wide awake at 7am on a Saturday morning I figured this was as good a time as any to get back to it.

Honestly, when I started this blog I think it was an attempt to make myself feel better about who I am and what I did. I needed some validation that my life wasn't just stuck in neutral. I graduated college and I had the job, the apartment, the car - all the things you are supposed to have as an adult. From one perspective, I had everything figured out but from another, there was something missing - something big.

I got into this funk where I had no idea where my life was going. This can't be IT, right? This can't be what life is all about. So when I decided to go back to school for my MBA, I added my trip along the Camino de Santiago before picking up and moving 6000 miles from California to England. And that just happened to be the best decision I have ever made in my life.

I learned so much about myself along the Camino and trying to live out those values in everyday life has moulded me into the person I will be for the rest of my life. Don't get me wrong, I will still be growing and learning and experiencing new things but I am and will continue to be more confident and strong about myself and my actions and beliefs.

My boyfriend said something that really stayed with me. He said that he hasn't had much self-confidence and as much encouragement and support that I give him, he never really believed me until he went away on holiday on his own with a friend and his friend's family. He's learned things about himself that you can't really learn from someone else. It really takes an act of self-acceptance in order to start seeing the good that others see in you.

Now, I am not saying that I am this self-actualized, superior person who has their entire life figured out. It's not like one day you suddenly decide, "Yep, I love myself now and I will have high self-esteem for the rest of my life!" That's just stupid. I have found, like so many things in life, that self confidence, self acceptance, self love, is a journey - like a great hiking trail. You can't have those magnificent peaks without the low valleys and those switchback trails in between.

But you know what? Valleys can be just as beautiful as peaks and you're really looking at the same landscape anyway. It's just a matter of perspective.