New Year Thoughts

Greetings and Happy New Year, Planet Earth!

So is it, as Aughra said in The Dark Crystal, the end or the beginning? 

 “End, begin…all the same,” she said.  “Big change; sometimes good, sometimes bad.”  

 I’m quite fond of that film.  From studying the DVD, I learned that Jim Henson and his company built the world before building the story.   Likewise, C.S. Lewis had the character Mr. Tumnus in his head since he was a teenager, but he didn’t write The Chronicles of Narnia until he was in his 50’s.  

Perhaps creating-writing, drawing, painting, maybe even dancing is often like that; starting in pieces, I mean.  You could call it putting together a puzzle, but I liken it to archeology, which some of you might have heard me mention before.  You have a sense of something there that’s very big, but you only start with a fragment.  You have to brush the dust off the rest and then assemble what you have until it makes sense.  Sometimes you find two or three different things buried in the dirt, but until you polish it and figure out what goes where, you only find a mess.

The bulk of my life was spent on puzzling out where I fit-that is, what should my life be all about?  I know I’m not the only one.  Many people seem to have this sort of sense of being lost.  I know I’ve also written about that before.  Well, I think I have at least part of it figured out now.

2012 was quite a whirlwind for me.  When I wrote that it might be a jalapeño of a year-that is, if variety is the spice of life, then it must be a pretty spicy year, I had no idea how accurate I was going to be.  If I had to sum up the year in one word, it would be this one: Discipline.  I’ll elaborate more on that later.

A few years ago, I read a book on personality types, and it broke down what ideal jobs might be and so on.  I really wish I could remember the book title, but I’d had to sell it at one point.  (Suffice to say Oprah had touted it.)  I had already known I was a creative person-no surprise there-but I’d always thought I was an advisor type.  While that was close, I found out I was wrong.  I am actually a teacher by nature.  When I discovered that, it made so much sense.  Perhaps those of you who know me are shaking your heads and muttering, “Well, DUH!” to yourselves.  I can honestly say it was a revelation for me.  I had a real paradigm shift.  Here’s the difference between a teacher and advisor: I don’t so much like telling people what to do, but I love, I revel in seeing people ‘get it.’  When their eyes light up in realization, when they understand, and learn from their mistakes and thus correct themselves-I love that!  Of course, that applies to me as well.

Obviously, I’m not the type of teacher that stands in a classroom, but truth be told, sometimes the best teachers are the ones you find in life, and I think this-teaching people to ‘get it,’  whatever ‘it’ is, might be what I really want to do with my life.  I think I must do this, and find a way to do it creatively.  I want to help others along the journey of life, and thus have them help others, too.

Why on earth did it take me so long to figure out something I’d already kind of wanted when I was a teenager?  (My original job choice was to be a counselor to help people through their problems.  My thinking had been in the right direction, at least.)  It turns out that the depression, the apathy, and my own selfish nature had been suppressing what I knew was there but couldn’t articulate.  You can’t help others if you’re only thinking of what’s in it for you.  Also, as I’d written before, I’d grown up in a world where “No” was so common, I’d forgotten “Yes” was a true and valid answer.

To be a teacher is to also be a leader of sorts, and before now, I’d never thought of myself as one.  In fact, the mere thought of being in charge of anything absolutely terrified me.  I’d lost work for that very reason.    Before, I didn’t accept it or take it seriously as I should have.  I’d groomed myself for failure-self-sabotage, perfectionism, etc.  I was genuinely afraid of people relying on me, so much so that I’d subconsciously become unreliable so I wouldn’t fail later.  That’s messed up thinking but it took me years to figure out I was doing that.  

Even so, after I realized what I was doing, I didn’t know how to stop myself…because surely I couldn’t be in charge…could I?  It’s amazing what you can learn when you force yourself to learn it.  As the year came to a close I got a full-time position as a senior guard for a new contract in a town called Jefferson.  Senior Guard basically means I’m in charge of all of the paperwork; I talk to the contact at the job site about any issues, etc.  I knew what the position meant and made myself take it seriously.  Guess what?  It’s made me a better person.  Nothing else has changed: the pay is still crappy, the hours are still long and mostly empty, and I’d missed the sign-up date for full benefits by mere days.  I’ll have to wait until much later this coming New Year.  And yet, I’m a better person, because I’m forcing myself to change my thinking.

So, Discipline is going to be my word for quite a while, especially now that I know what I need to do.  Perhaps this year, and maybe all these years of false starts and me almost getting it but not quite, was all about discipline-the forge.  Discipline hurts but it is so absolutely vital.  I wouldn’t be who I am if God hadn’t disciplined me.  Discipline isn’t punishment necessarily, but correction, or really redirection.  The old saying goes that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  I hope I am ready now.  If not, please throw me back into the forge and beat me until I am.

 
Happy New Year.