Seasons: Lifes Curveballs
It's been almost a year since COVID-19 swept over the entire world. Not many expected it. America disregarded it. Yet the months ensuing would turn this world almost upside down, though I suppose "inside-out" is more appropriate considering that we're all confined to our homes. I remember going to class on the last in-school day of my senior year. It was fairly normal, research in the morning, lunch at around 11:30 on the senior patio with friends, and physics to close it out. At 2:40pm, the announcement went off saying that we all were going to be sent home. A whirlwind of events continued. Now I won't bore you with all the details about how the pandemic started because we've all read the news, heard the stories, and feel the frustration. We all just want to feel "normal" again, whatever that really looked like or means.
What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in diguise
Oscar Wilde
Life goes through different seasons: seasons of change, seasons of growth, seasons of heartbreak, seasons of joy, and so on and so forth. As the title suggests, it's life's way of throwing curve balls at you, keeping you on the balls of your feet (no pun intended) as you stand at the plate ready to bat a home run. But it isn't so much about what pitch was thrown that makes a baseball hitter a great one, but how they read the pitch and make the necessary compensations. Isn't that how we should approach the seasons of life? After all, we do go through summer, fall, winter, and spring every year (though I feel like the lines have slowly blurred a little bit more these past years...shoutout global warming). I'm convinced that it's less about what season you're going through, and more about how you walk through each season that demonstrates your character. Though your seasons may define your reality, your actions define your identity.
Though your seasons may define your reality, your actions define your identity.
- Me
Ok, so we've established that we all go through seasons. I challenge you to think about what season you're going through right now. It could be a combination of seasons, joy and patience, happiness and confusion. The real question, however, isn't what season you are in, but how do you make the most of it? This is something that I've continued to struggle with. For all of COVID, I believe I've been in a season of patience and growth. It's been a time where things haven't gone the way that I'd hoped and has left more questions than answers. I'd say I'm distraught, oftentimes disheartened. But if anything I'm enthralled and excited. After all, emotions, both good and especially bad, remind us that we are still alive. Just as each natural season brings it's joys and pains (summer brings vacation but dreadful heat, and winter brings serene snow but terrible roads), so do all seasons in our own lives. To make the most of our seasons, we must attune ourselves to our emotions and to experience them, even if it gets painful. Listening to our emotions enables us to grow and mature into the person that we want to become.
Though this little patch of writing may not provide any advice that is life-changing or breath-taking, I hope it makes you reflect a little bit on your own life and your own seasons. Do you attribute your identity to your season or to your actions? Do you see the good AND bad in your current season? Just recently, I watched Pixar's new movie Soul and its beautiful message about life's purpose: life itself. The next paycheck isn't the end goal; the next breakthrough isn't the endgoal either. It's the journey (both good and bad) that makes life worth living.