Reflecting on the last year, more or less exactly this month and the following, being away 4400 miles from home is kind of a daunting experience. New faces, new environment, and all alone— homesickness, missing the known surroundings, and getting a taste of new culture; everything contributes to either hardening the persona I have learned to foster over time or turning me into a cliche, another brick in the wall. If you call this growth, then I have grown exponentially.
And I wouldn’t disagree.
But things I have learned to master over these months are greater than the growth itself, finding ways to become more responsible, caring, and loveable (also an astray); characteristical phenomena have weaved the experiential threads I longed for— or maybe, I never cared about. It has shaped my minimalistic journey, but at the same time, made my extravagant self more brutal when I let go. Fortunately, though, I also learned to muzzle it along the way.
Survival of the fittest— it could be in the other way too. Resilience contributes, not necessarily always mean you are the fittest being around. And sometimes it comes at the expense of a greater sacrifice. Letting go of your preferences, embracing challenges, getting out of your comfort zone, striving for more— all the sacrifices for whom? Yourself or another? What contributes to your psychological growth given that you are old enough? It’s a dilemma that fights one another before one becomes prominent.
But one thing is for certain, sacrificing never gets wasted. It may sometimes, seemingly, give you the impression of self-sacrificing but know that the greater achievement always involves others— what you may call personal gain, it has to benefit others along the way; one way or another. So, all the sacrifices made during the period far away from home, yeah, it has made others happy, meaning, they aren’t a wasted effort. That makes me happy as well.
The contributors…
“People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
I got a rose. Or, many.
And I haven’t forgotten the truth, Mr Fox.
I know how and what this life holds us responsible for. That’s the driving factor contributing in silence while I grow every day— surpassing the sacrifices, they motivate me to thrive amidst adversities. Faces that whisper to me when I’m feeling down or on the verge of going astray; they remind me of the truth, the reality of life. And at the end of the day, my roses, they keep me going— but alas, how I dislike roses in real life!
