merely human

My mom would always comfort me when I was upset and full of emotion, telling me that whatever I was feeling was okay. We should never be ashamed or angry about how we feel because our feelings are not within our control, they are simply who we are. This was a lesson that stuck close with me. Going through the trials and tribulations of growing up in today’s society, an intense world that is anything but predictable, it is important that one is able to take a moment to breathe, readjust their perspective, looking at the big picture and realizing that they are, merely, human.

There is much to be sad about, but sitting and crying will not fix anything. The feeling of helplessness is simply a side effect of being human. All that we do and feel and experience, these are all effects of our human tendencies that drive us. And we go. we move forward and continue to do so more and more quickly. We have picked up speed and it is as though, the faster that we move we begin to lose sight of our sense of reality, of a perspective that keeps us centered, humble, and true. It is that moment when we come back down to earth, allowing ourselves to stop and take a moment, take in everything around us, the little, the big, the seemingly insignificant, that we need, because the truth is we need a kick in the ass to wake us up a little, reminding us to just relax.

I remember feeling a great sense insignificance during my travels. Standing on the peak of a mountain ridge in Ethiopia overlooking Gondar, a city full of history, full of people, full of an existence that in no way involved me and all so new to me, so beautiful. As I stood looking out at the city and all of its element, truly taking in their existence, my existence was insignificant. This was a freeing feeling to suddenly possess. 

All that I was trying to figure out about myself and my life, the things I had set out to let go of, and the need to discover something new, something brilliant - it was this feeling of irrelevance, my existence being so small on the large scale of things, and my problems even more so, that made my whole self smile. 

In the big scheme of things, even the things that seem the most important can be simply trivial in a different light, and at the end of the day, at the end of all of the stress, the drama, the testing moments that cause tears to flow endlessly, we are, merely, human. We can only be the best we can be; it is all we can do.