It seemed that yesterday was the Universe trying to let me know something. We had the author Junot Diaz at our school for a large all day event that I helped to plan. He came and spoke with the freshmen class who have all read his book "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao". He was a down to earth, frank, intelligent, engaging person and some of what he said really stuck with me.
He spoke about what the true meaning of an education is. He said that if you go through school with your fists raised and defensive, you will never truly get an education. In order to be transformed by higher education you have to open yourself and become vulnerable. To new ideas, to challenge your perception of yourself, to try things you are scared to try or never wanted to try. He spoke of how he never did this as an undergraduate but rather as a graduate student. I can totally relate to this..except that I never have opened myself up. I am perpetually scared to try new things and become adamantly stubborn when there is something I don't want to do. Rather than opening myself up and seeing what it might be like I just write it off. Then I wonder why I feel so empty (duh Lynne..use a little logic here!). We all do everything we can to not get hurt but I wonder if I am not hurting myself more by not trying (I am going with yes on this one).
He also said "I don't want to be liked, I want to be understood". He went on to explain that being liked means that you are just alright, that you meet some basic criteria for the other person but it is on a superficial level. To truly understand a person you have to care, you have to invest yourself, and have compassion. It is not an easy thing to do to understand someone. I am lucky to have people in my life who understand me, and take me for who I am, faults and all. It gave me pause to realize that I have rare friendships and that I am truly blessed.
Later that night, when out to dinner with my great friend Josh, we spoke of something similar. Granted it was geared toward my love life (I know your saying what love life?). He spoke about how I should try and push myself out of my comfort zone (we all know just how much I love to do that!). It's true though. I have always looked for men on bbw (Big beautiful women in case you don't know) sites. These sites are geared towards men who find women of my size or any woman larger than the average attractive. I have had no luck (and some seriously negative experiences) on "regular" dating sites in the past. While I am smaller now that I have been in a long time I still don't think I can join one of the "regular"sites. I just think it will be setting myself up for failure. However, as Josh pointed out, I need to step out of my comfort zone and if I fail, then no big deal since I am expecting it to anyway.
Now I don't know if I am the only one, but it seems the Universe is sending me a big ole hint. Get out and try something. Anything new,anything that challenges you to feel uncomfortable. Starting this weight loss journey was most certainly not comfortable (it was scary as hell!) and it has turned out to be a good thing. Stay tuned folks, let's see how much I can push myself shall we?
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