Keep Swimming...

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

― Albert Einstein

I love this particular quote. I actually gave a presentation in one of my classes last semester around this nugget of loveliness. The point I was making was that often times we perceive ourselves differently then how others view us.

In that respect, I am my own worst critic. I think I've spent much of my life ignoring the qualities that I have and instead focus on my flaws. It's only in the last few years that I've really started to accept myself for my "fishy-ness", if you will. It wasn't so much the world that was expecting to me to climb that tree, but rather myself. And no matter how much I flopped and flipped and twirled, I couldn't get my fins to wrap around that big ol' tree.

And in such, I felt I was a failure.

Here was a girl who had two college degrees, a great family, a handful of great friends and yet nothing seemed to be coming together. My relationships were failures, my employment a joke, and my life unfulfilled.

I had the recipe for a successful life, but yet in comparison to my friends who'd found husbands, steady jobs, nice incomes and seemingly perfect lives, I didn't feel very successful.

I'm not sure exactly what brought it all in perspective for me, but there came a point when I took a deep breath and really examined my life and I realized that my biggest problem was I was too worried about meeting other's expectations and comparing my life to the world's standards.

This was the start of a beautiful journey for me. I started to really look inward and I realized that I needed to strip away some things and really find out who I was and what I wanted to achieve in life.

Imagine, if you will an old table. Something you've found at a thrift store, or an antique shop, or even the side of the road. The outer appearance is pretty shabby. It's been painted half a dozen times, and banged up and worn out. Imagine the places that table has been. The houses it's set in. The families that have used it. It's been the sitting place of a housewife, sipping her morning coffee. A resting place for a weary head. The school desk for children doing homework. The canvas of a scribbling four year old. A cat's jumped on it. A skillet has burned it. A shot of whiskey has stained it. It's traveled from place to place and everywhere it's been it's fulfilled some new purpose. It's full of experiences, and has seen more things then you or I.

Yet now it sits, dusty and worn, forgotten. There it is in the corner of that antique shop, or piled up with odds and ends in that thrift store, or worse yet in the back alley surrounded by trash and being more and more weathered by the elements.

One day you see it and you pick it up. You take it home. You see it's potential. You realize it has worth and so you begin the stripping process. You clean it, you sand it, you chip away all the dirt and layers of paint. And underneath? Underneath, you see it's true beauty. The grain of the wood, the ornate carvings. You can see the love that some craftsman put into it. The purpose that it's master carpenter had when he first had the vision of making that table.

And so you wipe away the junk. You apply a little varnish. You refinish it to it's original beauty. And there it stands: A diamond in the rough.

I think we're all like that. Our Master Carpenter, our Creator, our God had some divine purpose for each of us. My purpose is not yours, and your's not mine. There is no comparison. We are each beautiful and serve a purpose far greater then even we can imagine. Yet so often, we spend our lives bouncing from place to place, identity to identity, like a chameleon, always just adapting to our surroundings, doing what is expected. Or perhaps not, perhaps rebelling simply to rebel, not to achieve greatness, but to escape our confusion of what we are "supposed" to do.

That's not to say that these experiences aren't neccesary. Just as this table went from home to home and perhaps served a purpose in each of those homes, in the end it sat it's original intent long forgotten.

As human beings, created by a loving God, we need to remember we have a purpose. And no matter where we've been, or where we are going, we have not yet arrived. We need to strip ourselves down to core, sometimes. Allow the refinishing process to take place. Remember that we are each different and each made for something great. I can't be my best, if I'm trying to be like you.

So yeah, i've finally accepted my fishy-ness. I'm finding satisfaction in the simple things. I'm constantly learning and evolving and finding out more about what makes me ME. In the process, I might lose some friends. But the question I ask is, "Are they really my friends?" I may walk away from those previous degrees. I might not have a big home, or children or a husband. But the question I ask is, " Was that truly my path? "

I am happy in my small house, living with a man I love and who loves me back, with a dog that provides us with companionship, love and protection. With family members who support us, no matter what we are doing, with a handful of friends who get it. I don't worry about how others might judge me, or whether what I'm doing makes sense to them.

It makes sense to me. I am happy. And I'll continue to swim, while the rest of the world might climb. At this point, I recognize that I'm on the right path. For once in my life, I'm doing what's natural. And in that, I've found my own worth, my own intelligence, and my own purpose.