Tuesday, 02 June 2009

• Life Lessons

  For the first time, thirty seems much older than twenty-nine. Somehow, still being in one's twenties seems to carry less pressure to have learned something from life, to have gleaned and applied some small bits of wisdom. Now that I've been thirty for all of two weeks and one day, this Featured_Grownups prompt seems to carry a little more weight; I can't just pound out something about how if you set your hopes high you'll probably be disappointed, but if you set them low you might be pleasantly surprised.
  
  No, I feel a need to come up with something profound, preferably something pithy and witty and profound, if possible. And this is where the trouble begins. I can think of little tidbits of wisdom--things like "No one is paying nearly as much attention to you as you are, so stop worrying about what everyone thinks" and "Life is hard, suck it up and deal with it"--but are these really the defining life lessons I want to pass on?
  
  I could go generic and say "Just be yourself," as I was told very whole-heartedly recently. I'm still pondering that one. I could tell you to savor every moment, to live life to the fullest, to take time for yourself, that tomorrow is a new day, that today is an adventure and that's why it's call the present...I could go on like that forever.
  
  But to attempt to whittle it down to one thing, one lesson that has defined my life, well, I'm not sure I can do it. What I have learned in the thirty years, two weeks and one day I've been hanging out here is that this world is not my home. I'm just passing through. Most of the time I enjoy the visit, but there's always an undercurrent of longing for home. And I want to live this life in such a way that others will want to join the journey. So maybe my lesson is this: this life is not about me. It's about my life shining in such a way that others will see Christ's reflection in me. I want my life to be the lesson.

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