I have been spending much of my thinking time this year devoted to understanding how I got where I am, to who I am, to what motivates me, and what inspires me. This morning while I was out walking Hattie, it struck me why I write the kind of fiction that I do– characters that take adverse circumstances and turn them into something positive– because that's how I've chosen to live my life.
I've been a high school teacher, a track/cross country coach, a speaker, and you could say I've been an educator on many levels. I've watched people face many challenging circumstances. I've watched people set goals to move forward. What I find most interesting is that for all the self-help information out there, people still stumble, mostly by their own choosing.
I could make a list of the many challenging life experiences I've had, but what I can't exactly say is how I learned to hold my head high and move forward, to show the people who didn't support me, didn't like me, or whatever, that I would accomplish more than they could ever dream, that I would be the best that I could be, that I would never let them get me down.
I tend to believe I'm an old soul and while I am a late bloomer in many aspects of my life, I can look back and see where these lessons were being taught to me. Of course I didn't understand them then but as the years went by and I was faced with other situations, I could pull on those coping strategies and push myself forward.
This isn't to say that I didn't recoil for some time. Of course I did– every time something happens to us that changes our lives in some way (I'm talking particularly here when people leave our lives), it's a loss and we have to mourn that loss. But somehow in that rest period I allowed myself, my inspiration, motivation, and strength would return. Ultimately, I am stronger each time because I've used these building blocks of life experiences to grow.
Life isn't supposed to get us down even when it's easy to feel that way. I still believe that inside each of us an ember burns– even one that can be barely seen for some people– but it's there. And while I do believe everything we do should be because it makes us happy, there's no reason not to use the experience of hurts from others to motivate us to go forward.