Our bigger picture may have something else in store for us at any given time...maybe it's time t

The below is a submission I had turned in to Chicken Soup for the Soul a few years ago... it was not selected and that's ok but, I did not want it to just get shoved into a file to never be read... so I am sharing it with you! Enjoy.

From a young age I struggled with a variety of mental health challenges including anxiety and depression (and then some) along with your average “growing pains” and life experiences which can be hard enough to handle in and of themselves. I spent years attempting to figure out who I was based on measuring my image of self against the opinions of others or, more like, my assumption of their opinions. Feeling out of place was a common occurrence and anytime I stepped outside of the ridged box I placed myself in in order to obtain some sense of “self”, I was quickly reminded by my distorted thinking to put myself back into my own mental prison and only allow other people to determine my next move or way of thinking. As I approached college and needed to determine what I wanted to do with the rest of my life (as most 18 year olds believe they need to decide), I came up with what I thought was a brilliant game plan. I would pursue an education based on the one thing I couldn’t understand, human thoughts, processes, and behaviors, especially where I was concerned.

I decided to major in Psychology and Counseling. Despite still having to face down my own demons, I began to gain a better understanding of mental processes, behavior, human interactions, and the “whys” of what we do. As graduation approached, I felt confident that I had created a plan for myself that would come together in a nice image of what I believed my “bigger picture” and path in life should look like based on my experiences. I saw myself as a broken person who endured a lot of bumps and bruises who would in-turn use those trials as a guide to giving back to people who were on similar challenging paths. In my mind, everything I endured would lead me to a point that I would be able to help those struggling with mental illness and every day trials and tribulations.

Right out of undergrad, I was overwhelmed by determination and excitement. I was pleasantly surprised by all the job opportunities available to me and learned quickly that in order to narrow down my ideal career in Psychology, I would need to obtain my Master’s Degree. Despite being scared of pursuing a higher level of education, I knew that this would be my only option in the field to be able to make any sort of progress financially and do what I had hoped within my career. I had been told that many of my pre-graduate degree jobs would not be the best environments or most willing clientele and that I would just need to get through it, further myself educationally, and then, I would be closer to my “dream job”. I stood strong, persevered and before you know it, despite the challenges, had my Master’s Degree. My ideals and aspirations were even higher than before but, the future I was promised in the field and what I learned through my studies was far from the reality I faced while working in some of the settings I had available to me. I found that money spoke louder than the desperation of those in need, safety was not a priority, and professional ethics were brought into question almost daily. This was not what I had expected and I was facing a battle between my ideals and some harsh reality.

I began to doubt my mission and purpose. Since I had put my heart into this field and used my broken past as a means of working diligently to touch the lives of others, I felt hopeless. I truly believed that my intentions would be supported by the goals of the organizations I was working for and that the patients that we served were truly invested in their treatment. Overwhelmed with despair, I decided to close this chapter of my life as a career path and tried to remind myself that there would always be avenues to apply my knowledge and skills in order to help those who were fighting down their own darkness.

Feeling as if I had just gone through a break up (with my hopes and aspirations) I remember sitting down, discouraged and lost, spilling my heart to a close friend of mine. I explained that I didn’t know who I was anymore after I made this decision. I was afraid my experiences were in vain and described how each choice I made throughout the past several years was to fulfill what I believed to be my “destiny”. It was in that moment that my friend turned to me and said, “Man makes plans and God laughs”. I was completely caught off guard by this statement but at the same time, saw the light at the end of the tunnel I had been missing when I made my decision to pursue another career path. I didn’t realize that this statement held so much weight as a guidepost for my future. I realized in that moment that everything that was happening served a purpose bigger than myself and was a part of my life’s journey. I spent so much time putting my life into a structured plan in order to help justify times of my life, thoughts, and behaviors, I was ashamed. I was so inflexibly focused on turning my past into a specific purpose that I couldn’t see that I was defining myself based on a career rather than embracing who I wanted to be as a person and what I contribute in some many different aspects.

I spent years trying to strategically plan my future in order to justify my experiences and be an inspiration to others that I couldn’t see that I did not need to be defined by a career choice but needed to embrace my character. It wasn’t what I did or the motions I went through that would help me fulfill my purpose but who I was internally and who I wanted to be. I refused to entertain any other possibilities and options in my life regardless of how hard I was trying to bang down closing doors only to just wind up opening myself to self-imposed negativity in the end. I tried to maintain so much control over my future that I wouldn’t allow for any true growth opportunities to come into my life. When reality hit and I had to face some hard truths about different aspects of certain career paths I was pursuing, I was completely emotionally unprepared to take a different route in life due to how ridged I had become and how focused I was on only allowing myself to go down one specific path. I realized based on that indirect piece of advice that I have far less control over my destiny than I thought. I can’t predict what’s ahead of me or what’s meant for me but what I can predict is how I will allow my experiences to contribute to who I want to be as a person regardless of the setting I am in and what I am capable of doing in order to use my darker life moments as a flicker of light for those who are engulfed in their own seemingly endless tunnel of loss, confusion, and negativity.