Better To Have Tried

Well it's been a minute!

Hi there! I'm still here, I'm still at school, I'm still keeping busy! Junior year has been flying by and it's been a bit of a writer's block period for me. I've had some trouble getting inspiration for something to write about, and I think it's taken me all this time to realize that part of the problem is that things haven't all been easy this semester, and that hasn't necessarily been a block, but more of a discouragement.

This semester has been filled with lots of unexpected surprises, many of them coming in the form of unexpected disappointments. Things are all on track, and I'm doing absolutely fine. But truthfully, it's been frustrating to see a lot of things not go the way that I planned. It hasn't been one specific thing, it's been a sort of accumulation of what has seemed like a few bad days in a row, a few roads that have led to dead ends, and a few things that just haven't turned out the way I expected them to when I was so sure that I would have the outcome I wanted.

Sometimes it feels as though there are all these forces working against us. Maybe it's people you're working with, people who have their say about your future plans, and even things that you can't explain away as just bad coincidences. The more we put ourselves out there, the more room there is to not get the results we would like. It feels like a risk whenever we try something new or put ourselves in an uncomfortable situation, hoping that there will be some benefit brought to us by doing so. This semester has been full of trying. Not all of it has ended up how I've wanted, and it's been hard to swallow the fact that not everything gets easier when you grow up, if anything, it gets much harder. What I have been viewing as my disappointments, what's really been discouraging me after trying, are really just different outcomes than I anticipated. That doesn't mean, however, that they are failures.

What I've learned over the past few weeks is that life is about so much more than just what we weigh as our triumphs and downfalls. There truly is not reason to label everything as either a success or failure. Our experiences that come and go are just that: experiences. We have nothing to lose when we put ourselves out there, but when we think of an outcome that we don't find preferable, we call that failure. If it doesn't work out exactly how we expect, we will tell ourselves that we failed. When it comes to the things that I have been picturing myself doing at this time last year, it hasn't all been what I pictured. Lots of things have turned out for the better, and other things have just turned out... differently.

There's nothing wrong with what I am doing. I'm on my own path, and despite what I tend to believe when things get tough, my path is the right one for me regardless of any path that may look like a better one. It's taken a long time for me to put this into words, but it feels great to be able to articulate it. There's more to our lives than just hoping that the good ends up outweighing the bad. The most important thing that I've learned this semester is that our days are so much more than our initial judgment of them. What seems like a lost opportunity is just a different turn than we expected, and that can lead us to a much better place than we ever thought existed.

What I can tell myself now is that I am right where I am supposed to be. Right now. I know for a fact that when I look back at things that I once viewed as my disappointments or my dead ends, I can find the silver lining and can tell myself that things worked out how they were supposed to. Not everything that we see as our perfect scenario is the best thing for us. Our paths, in my opinion, are determined sometimes best when out of our hands. If we constructed everything for ourselves perfectly, then life wouldn't have any surprises. We wouldn't have a lot of the road blocks, yes, but we wouldn't have nearly as many wonderful surprises that seem to come out of nowhere. As many road blocks as I've had, I've had just as many of those wonderful surprises. And those make it all worth it.

We have to keep trying. If we stop trying, we aren't truly doing anything that will bring us all the happiness that we seek. Every time we put ourselves out there we are gaining something, whether it's new connections, practice for something bigger, and even learning more about ourselves. We can't put ourselves down every time it seems like things just aren't working out, because the less we try, the less we can push ourselves to do better next time. And there's always a next time.

I wanted to lay this out as a piece of encouragement for anyone else who may be feeling it this week, this month, or even this year. We are so much more than what we label as our "failures". The only thing that defines us is our ability to see past all of the difficulties and create meaning for ourselves each day, and I'm grateful that I have learned that lesson and am now able to put it into words.

xo Kate