Suddenly, a fact has become apparent to me. Life, and often times, the people you meet, are relentlessly unforgiving. And while this may be inconceivably obvious to most of you, it is frontpage news for me.
Being thrown into a completely new situation in a different place full of strangers is a challenge for everyone. No matter who you are or where you come from, this is not easy. Challenges force you to push your limits, to stretch out your arms and to give completely of yourself. I will fail. But, if I try hard enough, I will also succeed. And success out of a challenge is incredibly more valuable than success from just simply being.
Everyone, at some point in their lives, leaves their comfort zone, or rather, is forced out. It is in these situations that, I think, we learn the most about ourselves. We learn that we really aren’t as confident as we thought we were. We learn that finding people to befriend and to spend our days with is one of the hardest things to do. We learn that being your self is infinitely more complicated than it sounds. We learn that longing to love and loving is much easier to come by than actually being loved. And, unfortunately, we learn that love is the most important thing.
This importance of love comes to us in two ways. The first (and wonderfully better option) is that you find someone whom you love and who loves you in return, and you realize that this is it. This is what everyone talks about. This is why mankind even exists. The second (and much more common, if you’re me) is that you don’t find that person. Or you do and you fall in love with said person, but he never loves you back, or even sees you when you walk by. And it is this absence of love that punches you in the stomach and tells you that what you don’t have is what you need. We are made for love. It preserves what little humanity the world has left. It gives people hope. And when you realize this and understand how momentous it is to be loved, you’re a goner. That is all I want, to be loved. And it’s not happening for me.
What do you do if you’ve independently worked for everything you have, and the one thing you want is something you can’t have on your own?
