New season, New me


I remember being in primary and secondary school and always looking forward to a new school year. I liked the beginning of new terms, but I felt that new school years, more than anything else, offered a unique opportunity for self reinvention. I felt that despite the mistakes I may have made in the previous year, I could walk into a new year without baggage. I could choose different activities, different friends, make different choices and set different goals and priorities. Now obviously, I didn't need to wait for a different year to come around to make the necessary changes in my life, but if you're anything like me (and the entire human race) huge changes in our lives are ushered in by other big changes. We tend to wait for these monumental changes that we cannot control to reflect and initiate smaller changes that have been under our control the entire time.

I finished the IB this year and I remember lying in my bed on my penultimate night trying to take stock of everything that had happened over the last two years. The very last thing I wanted was to leave without properly coming to terms with everything that did or did not happen - call it my own form of closure. And now, as I look towards the rest of the year and think about the fact that I'm going to uni, I'm trying to take stock again and make decisions about the type of things I want to prioritse and the type of person I want to be. Now this goes without saying, but making these decisions ahead of time is only part of the journey. Making them in each moment is much more important and much more influential, but I think there's something to be said about having vision for your future. Of course, the big problem with that is we become so attached to our plans and legitimately fall apart if they don't come together the way we want them to. Recognizing that this was something I did was really the turning point for my education in the IB. I had so much on my plate with adjusting to new academic demands, my new leadership position aand trying to become friends with people with grossly different backgrounds and values. Realizing that I was trying to carry everything myself was great because I could see the root of my problem. But giving up control is hard; first because it's so familiar, but because it also feels safer. I rave about this all the time, but this idea that we have control over the outcomes of evrything is an illusion. We can control our actions and our priorities and we can choose what we fight for and believe in, but we cannot control the outcomes of all these things when they come into contact with external factors that we also cannot control. Knowing this is half of the treatment for control freaks like me... allowing this truth to change you though is much harder. I had to learn to walk into meetings with my agenda, recognizing that I could not forsee every potential bad occurence and that I didn't need to if I had prepared myself as best I could. I had to learn to make study schedules and be willing to change them if more work came up or if I really needed to schedule some more rest time or some time for a non-academic activity. I had to learn to say hello to people knowing fully well that it may not work out, holding out for the chance that it just might. I had to learn to share my beliefs despite the crippling fear that paralysed and still paralyses me most of the time because if people hate me for the beliefs that define me, then we probably wouldn't be good friends anyway. I had to learn to trust God with my desires knowing that He would only lead me to the best things in the right time, even if that time isn't following my schedule.

So as I enter this next season and reflect and make decisions and as the temptation to completely redefine myself hits again, I'll remind myself of the pits I've climbed out of in the last 18 years of my life and the lessons I've learnt along the way. New seasons produce their own set of challenges and it's easy to let yourself stay int he comfortable cocoon your last season may have provided you with. But I believe there's a way to remember the lessons you've learnt while making room to learn some more.

God bless you.

Dera

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