“If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead.” ~Oswald Chambers
If I were to look back at my life thus far, as I often do, I’d notice a pattern of events and feelings resembling the activity on an EKG monitor.
For every peak, there’s been a valley. For every leap forward, there’s been a stumble backward sometimes just an inch, and other times, what seemed like miles.
Recognising and embracing this has brought me a tremendous amount of peace, because I once believed that progress required a steady, consistent ascent toward perfection.
If I struggled with something I’d struggled with before, I felt I’d somehow failed. If I experienced a personal or professional setback, I thought I’d done something wrong.
Growing, to me, meant always doing and feeling better than I did the day before. But I’ve realised that’s not growth; and when I believed it was, growth wasn’t what I was seeking.
I was seeking permanently better. I wanted persistent happiness—a reprieve from difficult, overwhelming feelings, and a sense that every day of my life, I was one inch closer to the ideal.
I’d say that life’s about the journey, but in the back of my head I believed it would have no purpose if not for the destination, which made it hard to truly pull my focus from it.
Labels:
focus, recovery, journeying, mental_health,
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