Friday, June 17, 2011

This Will Change Your Life

It's funny the way we experience life in circles sometimes. One of the more interesting aspects of being sensitive is that you get these feelings that "something" is about to happen before it does. Some of us "receive" thoughts that later manifest or just "know something" that we shouldn't. So it shouldn't surprise me that I heard the words "this will change your life" this evening. But, I found them to be profound and I found myself responding strongly to them because they represented one of those circles we sometimes encounter.

A long time ago I knew that my life was going to change, but I didn't know exactly how yet. It sounds crazy and there are times when I've wondered if I'm not just a little. But sometimes we forget just how powerful the trait of sensitivity can be. It doesn't always have to make sense. In fact, a lot of times it doesn't.

We think we have control; some sort of direction. Three years ago I was sitting on the balcony of a beach condo overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. I had just attempted to take the GMAT to get into an MBA program. I'd gotten a perfect score on the writing portion, a respectable score in the verbal portion and a dismal score on the math. At that point I'd been out of school for eight years so I knew that getting any kind of decent score on a standardized test was a long shot. I thought, so I still suck at thinking quantitatively when under pressure and can write like a pro even though I'm completely out of practice. As I watched the sun set into the blue green waters along the beaches of Treasure Island and felt the nightly breeze brush up against my bare skin, I resolved to go to school anyway. I was going to get that MBA no matter what and achieve my goal of opening up the doors to the rest of the corporate world.

At the time I didn't know that the decision to get that MBA was really an interlude that made the next act possible. Without that program I wouldn't have met the three professors who I worked with individually over the course of eight weeks of extremely challenging course work that involved a mid-term project paper, a final, weekly class attendance, heavy online discussion and a 20 page term project paper. These are the professors who praised my work, selected one of my final projects as an example for future students and who called me "one of the most outstanding students" they'd seen in the program. These are the individuals who wrote my recommendations so that I could pursue another graduate degree that I wasn't really sure about-until tonight.

This evening I finally sent them an update e-mail as I promised I would. I am grateful that I get this chance, even though I know it is going to be far from easy and I have a lot of growth to do. It isn't going to be easy because I'm going to have to change as a person. I'm going to have to keep changing my life. I don't quite fit in just yet, but I'm not a complete stranger either. This wasn't the plan I had in my mind three years ago. But everything we do, every choice that we make ends up changing our lives in some unforeseen way.

No one can guarantee the finale. Few of us stick to the original script. And I think it would be an awfully boring play if we did.

2 comments:

  1. Here's to not sticking with the original script. I've changed my script many times. I keep moving away from writing, but always returning. I'm on my way back to it again and this time it's out of a deep need to write. I've always heard other writers say that they'd die if they couldn't write or that they live to write. I never quite felt that until now.

    So here's to writing, writers, and breathing life into words and ourselves.

    Blessings!

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  2. Thanks for sharing your perspective! I agree that writers always return to it because of a deep need. We feel compelled to write.

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