You don't have to know where you're going to get exactly where you need to go. Sometimes life has a way of setting you back on the right path while ushering in endless opportunities for change, if only you choose to welcome it with open arms.
There is no doubt that I have lived the privileged life. Despite the abundances of my upbringing I had been utterly lost for the majority of my adulthood. Not lost in the sense that I remained dormant and aloof, as I was still an active participant in society- but lost in the sense of purpose and meaning. Although I felt love for others and grateful for the scrumptious delicacies life offered, I became ahypocrite; a bigot to those very statements.
How could I truly love others if I could not even love myself? How was I grateful when I wasted opportunities provided to me?
From the outside I appeared happy and successful, but in reality was sliding into a deep, festering pit of nihilism and despair. It was unmitigated and unarticulated denial, because unlike many others who find themselves stuck in this tragedy, I was completely lucid and aware of the causes and effects of residing in such a state. Consistent recklessness and self sabotage finally did me in. I learned very quickly that you cannot just do whatever you pleased in life while expecting to
get the outcome you desired.
I had lived and traveled to many countries, joined the army, worked many odd jobs while cultivating valuable experiences, had interactions with admirable intellectuals and gone on adventures only lived in fictions. Like I said, the privileged life.
But something was violently tugging at my soul. A dark night, void of any warmth or consolation from the true nature of humanity and
from the true nature of the person I had become. I was persistent in ignoring the feelings of helplessness, self-pity, guilt and anger until one day my body could no longer keep up with the contained abuse. I was diagnosed with auto-immune disorders and it wasn't until then that I finally died. Dying in the sense of letting go of my ego, starting from scratch, healing within so I could heal without.
It surely was a forceful, motivated process of recovery, but through the torment and suffering it was me and me alone who finally decided that enough was enough. I discovered that my passion in life was helping others in need, but in order to be of greatest service to others, I had to be of greatest service to myself first. I felt I had accumulated treasured knowledge, but resolved to transform it into wisdom by applying what I've learned into every aspect of my being.
Here I am, pursuing a career in health care as a nurse and perhaps one day a nurse practitioner. I do not believe in the systems our society has in place especially in terms of health care, which is why, I hope the paradigm shifts
greatly in the favor of holistic health, back to the fundamentals of Hippocrates.
My absolute desire is to manage a clinic in East Africa where I can apply the very principals that saved my life to people willing to receive them. Perhaps I fancy living out the myth of Chiron, the wounded healer. Perhaps I am living out my own allegory of Plato's cave or Hero’s journey. All I am certain of is that I am still in the process of healing. Physically, mentally and spiritually. My growth
is inevitable, as is the growth of humanity. And so the adventure of life continues.