Saturday, May 5, 2012

The Answer

I used to be a lot more religious than I am now. I lost it somewhere in the struggles in high school and college and all my friends questioning everything because of the International Baccalaureate Program and the philosophical nature of everything in it. I've been trying to find more of my religious beliefs recently but can't quite figure things out. I was watching one of my favorite shows and had a realization. There was a situation similar to many I have experienced where a girl realized she had lost her ultimate dream and was saying that she prayed for things her whole life and they were never answered so why would she pray now? And her friend said that God always answers prayers, but sometimes that answer is "no". And as stupid as a part of me feels this really hit me. Because I have felt this way a lot, but more than that I realized that it was possible that maybe I wasn't meant to take certain paths. Maybe I wasn't meant to play for the Olympic team. Maybe I wasn't meant to be a doctor or own a non-profit. Maybe- just maybe- my "failure" to accomplish the things I wanted to weren't failures, but paths I wasn't meant to take in the first place. Of course then I get angry because I got so hurt by losing these things that I wonder if I wasn't meant to take those paths why was I put on them in the first place? I have so many things I need to figure out, but I really started thinking that maybe all the things I wanted before weren't right for me, and that it wasn't that I didn't work hard enough or that I wasn't able to control my anxiety and depression enough. Maybe I didn't accomplish things in my life that I desperately wanted to not because I didn't deserve it, wasn't smart enough, wasn't willing to die even more to get them. MAYBE I'm not a failure. MAYBE when I wanted some things so badly and I prayed that I would accomplish them, the answer was just no- that that wasn't my path to follow. I still think a lot that the fact that I didn't get where I wanted to in life meant that I never should have lived in the first place, because so many of those things were what kept me alive. But MAYBE the "failures" to get where I felt I needed to in life weren't ME FAILING, but something or someone out there saying no, not because I wasn't good enough or deserving or happy or _____ enough, but because I wasn't meant to do any of that in the first place. MAYBE I still haven't found what I'm meant to do, but I'm hoping I'll see changes in my path as getting back on my true path after I try to take the one I feel like I should, and not failures. MAYBE I'm not a failure. This MAYBE could be a big thing for me. I'm going to need to do a lot more reflecting...

And I think sadly, more than anything this all made me realize how much to some extent I still HATE myself for not being strong enough or working hard enough to get where I wanted. To a large extent I don't hate myself for the abuse as much, but I hate myself for this. And I'm going to need to figure that out, or I will never be able to truly let go of my past enough to create a new future.

Well, I feel like I've repeated myself enough for one night time to go back to sleep :)

Our rabbi once said, “God always answers our prayers, it’s just that sometimes the answer is no.” – Barbara Feinstein

"To believe with certainty, we must begin with doubting." – Stanislaus I

Faith and doubt both are needed – not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve. – Lillian Smith

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