The hardest things to admit is that we don’t know, and we don’t have to know. Logic and knowledge are easily passed around but it’s the experience that teaches. Understanding happens when we allow ourselves to feel the experience. The anger (when things don’t go our way), the sadness (when we realize we’re not as great as we thought), the gratitude (when we’re accepted anyway), or the happiness (when we realize how the turmoil has helped our journey) felt at the different stages of the journey.
Looking back, the moment was overwhelming, and we didn’t know what to think or feel. When we’ve moved past it, life isn’t so bad and the worries we bred aren’t even relevant. It’s looking back and exploring the feelings at each stage that we are enlightened beyond the facts. We search for understanding, hoping to avoid uncertainty and don’t feel incompetent and it’s overlooked that incompetence is the path to understanding.
I, once, wanted to be educated in university to appear competent for employment, but my life had separate plans for me. For my safety, I couldn’t live on my own or live among strangers because my epilepsy was complicated to teach. I made my own job and informed as many people in my path. I couldn’t learn from a book or professor, I had to experience my life to know what I could and shouldn’t do. It was a daily frustration to be safe in my home and it forced me to feel where I was and understand why comparisons are unnecessary.
Competence isn’t gained through assistance. How would you feel if you received top grades knowing your parent did the work for you? Would it feel like your accomplishment? Would you be able to recall the experience and apply it in the next situation? Experience is vital to competence. Don’t fear failure, accept it as a step stone, and you will be enlightened.
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” – Denis Waitley
Astrid's Words 