Tag: Path

The Daily EO: April 23rd, 2013

I wasn’t alive when they said “Never trust anyone over 30”.   Back in the 60s anything went – right?  I don’t know, but my university days were much different.  Yeah, if I wanted to I could have found any mind-bending drug I wanted or I could have taken 8 years to get an undergrad degree.  I met some of those types.  But I also met a lot of people who really thought they knew what it was all about.   In my 20s, I knew what it was all about.  I was never going to have to “find myself”.  I wasn’t going to sit around and “expand my consciousness.”    People like that were flakes.   I was firmly within the straight and narrow and happy to be there.

There is a belief that as we get older we get set in our ways.  Less able to learn new things and accept new ways of thinking.  I don’t believe that now that I am getting older.  I think I am less certain of what it is all about than I was in my 20s. I am more open to thinking that perhaps I don’t know everything, that perhaps following all the rules in the mainstream world may not work for me or for someone else.  I guess I am more willing to say Perhaps.

My friend is trying to find her way right now.  And 20 years ago – when I met said friend – I would have rolled my eyes at her and said “Seriously!  Angels?  Spirits?  Breathing?  Come one!  Pull yourself together!  ”  But now, I think “Well, who am I to know?  If it is working for her (and others) then well . .hmmm. . . Maybe there is something there.”  Maybe it is me who is missing out in living my life to the fullest by not partaking in as many schools of thought and methods of introspection as I could?  I too have had to search for my path, spending long days wondering how could things have gone so wrong if I had done everything right?

Last year I tackled religion and spirituality in this blog on Good Friday.  In rereading today, I still think there is more to out there than we can understand, truth that we choose to see to the best of our ability coloured with our bias and perception.  I certainly didn’t begin my adulthood with openness, and while I am certainly opinionated on things like wedding etiquette, but now I am willing to say “Perhaps” on may other things.

I guess that is the wisdom that my mother told me about.

We should really start out with it.

April 23rd, 2013 Extra-Ordinary:  Find your way your way.

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The Daily EO: September 12, 2012

I ran to the place where I started my post secondary education – East Kootenay Community College, or as it has been renamed College of the Rockies.  I realized it had been 20 years exactly that I had first walked through those doors while many of my friends headed off to university in major centres.   I was forced to a college because of my lack of language skills (I don’t have a passing grade in Grade 11 language) – a requirement for university in BC.   I dropped out of French after Grade 8 (au revoir Monsieur Vankamp), then attempted Spanish by correspondence.  Both failed for different reasons.  But the backdoor into the University was through a college transfer after my first year.

I told everyone that I was terribly disappointed, but the truth was, going off to University at 18 was frightening for me.  College was much like high school.  I lived at home, I had a locker, and the classes were small.   I was relieved to have this transition year.  Even when I choose my university, I went with the University of Victoria because it was smaller – both the university and the city.  My parents both are UBC (University of British Columbia) alumni and I really thought growing up I would be at UBC in Vancouver for Engineering of all things.  Seriously – did I not look at my physics grades?

But instead I got a B Sc. in Psychology at UVic.  I wouldn’t have met the people in my life that are precious to me if I hadn’t taken that path – Lisa and Jason to name only a couple.

So as I stood wheezing outside the college, I remembered the first psychology and sociology classes I took there and my realization that school didn’t have to be just chemistry, biology and physics.  There were other options.  Other choices.  And Psychology was really compelling.

September 12, 2012 Extra-Ordinary:   Thank goodness for having a terrible ear for languages.  I wouldn’t change that part of my path even if I could.