Hard Won

Sometimes lessons in life are hard-won.

Like: Don't walk down newly mopped (and therefore still wet, since it's cold and the floor isn't drying quickly) steps while looking at a text on your cell phone and not holding onto the railing and not paying attention to the wet steps, because you forgot about them. You will learn, the hard way, that this can cause a slip (especially in treadless flip flops). And it will result in a bruised left butt-cheek. You can call me bruised-butt :). It hurts more tonight than it did yesterday when I slipped or all day today. Weird.

Like: Make sure you check the oil level in your 300 gallon tank that is used for the oil furnace that heats the house. Don't assume that, because you filled it in May, it will last through the whole winter, especially if it's a particularly cold winter. Because it won't. And you will learn that on a Monday night that drops into the 20s and the heater is blowing cold air. And you will get oil delivered the next day. But by then, unbeknownst to you, you will find that, because the tank was basically empty, air got into the lines bringing oil to the oil burner and now it will not ignite. And since it's winter and Tuesday night brought 5 inches of snow, the furnace people are slammed, and they can't make it out to fix your furnace until Thursday. But you also learn that there are wonderful people who will always help in any way they can. There is Bob who will come by and see if he can figure out the problem. There are Lea and Chuck who lend 2 space heaters so at least you won't freeze to death. And we learned a lot for the future, that's for sure! I'm certainly a ton more educated on oil furnaces! Which are a popular form of heating up here, especially in older homes.

So that's how my week has been going. Hahaha. Although, I guess if I would turn off the space heater in my room and go ahead and freeze, I wouldn't feel the bruised butt, because it'd frozen and numb!

Anyway, so I started pondering -- though I don't know why -- that idea of hard-won lessons. Sometimes we learn things in life that cannot be learned without going through an experience to get you to that point. Perhaps not the above two examples (though I think they are more impressed upon my mind because of how I learned them), since I could have learned those without experiencing the not-so-fun part. But there are things in life we learn only through going through tough stuff.

Because there was a time I was pretty sure about everything I wanted in life. But it turns out there were details I had never even considered. And it turns out sometimes those details matter. A lot. And sometimes it takes a while for those details to dawn on you. For example...

I have never pondered before the sideview mirrors on a car. But after I foolishly tore up mine, I was telling Lea that maybe my next car will have to be one with the kind of side-view mirrors that fold in (in both directions) when some fool driver smacks them on something :).

On a more serious note...

I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life several years ago as far as a career. I was going to go into a very scientific field. But as I took classes that were required to get that degree, I really did not enjoy it. And I got a C in one of the classes in which I really struggled. Had I not taken that path and tried it, I wouldn't have known how much I didn't want it. It wasn't a bad path. I just don't think it was the right path for me. And knowing what I didn't want helped me to figure out better what I did want. It helped me to realize what really mattered to me. What mattered to me was not being a career woman. What mattered to me was being a wife and mother. I didn't see that scientific field lending itself to what really mattered to me. But until I started down that path, I hadn't even thought about any of that stuff.

I have suddenly realized just how significant that is. Where I have often felt like I failed, maybe it wasn't a failure as much as it was an opportunity to learn. And if I learned something, then I didn't fail. With every experience, I learn more and more about what is important to me. And as I do this, my likelihood of success will increase.

Life is a great teacher. And just as I did not enjoy that C I got in Differential Equations, I don't really enjoy "failing" at certain things in the school of life either. But sometimes things just don't work out. And when that happens, I am figuring out (finally) that the best thing I can do is learn from it, figure out what I really want and what really matters based on what just happened, and go from there.

And know that next time will be better :).

So there's my two cents!

And p.s... I think the quote I have on my blog right now -- about the winds of change -- is very appropriate to this post. So if you haven't noticed it before, check it out :). I think it's one of my new favorites.