I started blogging when I was living in Santiago, Chile. Every day I was experiencing new things and I felt like if I didn't write it down and share it with others--especially those still in the US--my head would explode...or less dramatically...I would forget those experiences in the blur of that kaleidoscopic passage of time. Now that I am back in the US in lovely Santa Barbara, I realize that I have been severely (s)lacking on my blog entries.
I have mixed feelings about this. First, something tells me that the internet is too open of a forum to post entries that may have personal thoughts and emotions in them. THIS is not really a good excuse because honestly, the hard part would be getting strangers to read these blogs. They are really for my friends and family...the select few who do make their way to this page from time to time. Also, I tell myself that I am just too busy with everything else to write it all down. But don't we ALL say that we are just too busy? I, for one, love being busy. I fill my days as much as possible and push myself from morning to night to get all that I can accomplished DONE! I don't think that the human being thrives under conditions that promote laziness and a lack of busyness. That is my honest opinion.
I HAVE started to make better priorities in my post-college, work-filled life. One of those was getting to the gym in the morning before the hecticness of the day sets in. This has proven to be an awesome decision that has improved my mood and energy level all day AND let me enjoy quiet time in the evenings where I can do other things besides bemoan the need to walk to the gym and get my cardio done. Of course, I still have things that I need to prioritize into my day-to-day routine. Of course, keeping up with this blog would be one of those. It is not so much that I feel I HAVE to be blogging but more so that I experience so many things that would inspire others on a day-to-day basic that I feel there would be power in sharing those things in an open forum such as this.
So if you are reading this, you are awesome and I appreciate your continued support. I would not trade this time in my life for anything. It is pretty amazing being a 22 year old college graduate living in SB and experiencing all that is the post-college life. My views of others have changed dramatically as I surround myself with more and more interesting, diverse people. I absorb their stories and hear their life experiences and share in their trials, and in the end of it all, I realize time and again that WE ARE ALL HUMAN.
We are all going to hit hard patches. No one has it all figured out. We choose different paths and different professions. Some of us have children. Some of us are single and happy. Some of us fall in and out of love. Some of us are Christians. Some of us are high schoolers in need to guidance. We all have SUCH diverse perspectives on life that have been shaped by the different life experiences we have endured/enjoyed....and yet we all manage to interact. I could have a 20 minute conversation with the lady at the physical therapy clinic about who-knows-what.....and all the while it is irrelevant that I am 22 and she is 40, I am chronically single and she was married for 8 years to a man who recently passed away from health complications, I lived in Chile for 6 months but she was born and raised in the Phillipines for the majority of her life, she had shoulder surgery and I have never had surgery. The list goes on and on.
As I enjoy the working life and find that in both of my jobs I am surrounded by doctors, that is also a great learning moment for me. We see doctors in a certain way...I think a good way to categorize that view would be: praise-worthy, intimidating, and basically all that goes along with having such a superior profession. But that is something I have totally had to get over fast because there doctors are now friends. My office mate Katya is going to be practicing in two years after she serves her residency and she is brilliant...but we are just friends. She is just human. I know it sounds funny but it is true that I had to overcome those preconceived notions that I held about people with such demanding and intimidating professions.
Even the physical therapists that I work with are some of the nicest guys that you would ever meet. They work 10 hours days around people EVERY DAY. They are kind and patient and complete professionals. And they still are able to make jokes and have joy about their job and take on new cases every day. At the end of the day, they are also still able to say: "Thanks for your help today. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without the help of the aides so thanks a lot." And they are still able to go home to their loved ones and just enjoy a nice dinner and relish in the joys of family. I am seeing that most of what we have to overcome in life is our own personal struggles with issues. We have to overcome our own thoughts more often than not...thoughts that lead us into dangerous thoughts that influence us in negative ways. And in my experience, I have had thoughts about professions like those in medicine that these people are different than others....more "bad ass" and "daring'" to put in colloquially. Basically I have thought that they are doing something that I would "never be able to do".
But it is so NOT about that at all. Anyone can do anything. They just have to WANT it and not take no for an answer and work REALLY hard to get to that place. This is reassuring to know when it comes to physical therapy because for the past two years as I have struggled with choosing this profession, I have thought that is was just too elevated for me and that for some reason I could not make it through the hard work that would be required to get there. But that is not true. All of the doctors that I am surrounded with all go there...and you know how they did it? Step by step. They slowly and consistently worked towards their current profession, not thinking about the long term as much as they were thinking about the day-to-day: "Take that anatomy course. Get through that crazy internship. Gosh this day was hard at the hospital. Pass those hard exams." And little by little they got there.
So that is my wisdom for the day. Now I am going to get ready and head to the office to do some stuff for Ready2Move....which is going really well by the way...because that is what I am dedicating my energy to and because I love those students. I do not know what profession I will choose to purchase when I finally take on the challenge of grad school, but hopefully as you can conclude from this blog, that is not the most important decision in my life right now. It is about getting through THIS day and all of the priorities that I have set and remembering to smile and to let change happen because there is still going to be a constant in my life and that constant is God. Thanks for reading!! :-)
