Setbacks as a Step Forward

The homepage of this site says that the point of Lost in Aporia is life affirmation. Some may look at what I post and wonder how this is the case since I seldom write about growth, or productivity or anything like that. Regarding this my claim is that the act of creating and adding to this site is an act of life affirmation. I am a firm believer in the idea of leading by example. And while I would like to write more about my ideas about productivity and a growth mindset, I truly do not think I am in a spot to do so. The most valuable lessons of life come from our experiences and rather than write about my ideas I have tried to live them, to act them out. In doing so I have learned about the challenges of that come with daily self-improvement.

This brings up the question of what exactly do I mean when I say life affirmation? This is a question which has been at the center of this past year of my life. I have made some reference to leaving school for the first time which was a great change for me. More importantly was the fact that I left without my degree, without completing what I had set out to do. During this time in my disappointment I went about trying to bounce back. There was a phrase I had learned almost two years ago, " you have to keep you life going and growing", a lesson I immediately incorporated into my practice. What is my practice? It is the practice of daily self-improvement, putting effort everyday toward my growth goals. In these incremental steps my practice is to Become, to work toward my fullest self, and in this way affirm life in my unique expression. Completing my education was a milestone goal, as it is for everyone else, and to leave this uncompleted demoralized me for a time.

In these times where we feel defeated or we feel like ceasing our efforts and just calling it a lose when have a wonderful opportunity. We have the opportunity for reflection, but reflection from the other side of the coin so to speak. When things are going well and we are rolling along, either with work, or school, or in simply living every day; it is easy to make a plan and follow the course. During these times our self-reflection often questions what we are doing yet finds a way to convince ourselves that this is the "right course". To put it another way we can imagine our goals like being on a road trip and seeing the highway signs we expect and knowing we are going the right direction. When we begin to see our life in our way we can become trapped in the idea that this is the only right path and may end up in a place where we think, " this is not how things are supposed to go", or " I don't really want to this anymore", " this is not what I thought it would be". The idea of a straight path is one fades away quickly as we experience life and all the twists and turns inherit in it. Often those twists and turns seem like a setback or a defeat. And yes one could look at it this way. Or one could look at it as a turn on the road which opens up new routes and path to follow, new things to see and learn, one could look at these not as obstacles but opportunities. Reflection is one of the best opportunities that arises from a setback. Because reflection at this time is always different and to a degree more self-honest. When I was at school it was easy to keep taking classes and keep plugging along, even if I was disgruntled or no longer feeling satisfied with what I was doing. There was a time where I was thinking about being in school and feeling uncertain about why I was still in school. I would step back and remind myself that I was working toward my degree. Yet I often would experience doubts and dissatisfaction, I would wonder at the value of my degree, and I was struggling with budgeting the money I had. It was a rather frustrating time for me but I ignored my frustrated feelings to keep chipping away at my overall goal.

I began my college career at a community college, working through my Associates, and transferring to a university. I was fortunate to attend a school with a great faculty in the philosophy department and many on campus activities to participate in. In part because I was enthusiastic about being at a new school and also to help expand my practice of daily self-improvement I jumped into various clubs and volunteering activities. For two years there I happily proceeding along the path that set myself, taking classes, working on my degree, participating in my various programs but steadily the seeds of discontent were sowed in my efforts. Since this was my own subjective experience I find it hard to put what set me toward being dissatisfied without falling into merely complaining about what I did not like. Which is why I alluded to the beginning of college career when I first drew the map of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to achieve. At community college began to truly study philosophy for the first time and gratefully had professor with whom I could talk with candidly. Also during that time I began to formulate and take action on my ideas of the practice of daily self-improvement. As every young person does I began to wonder what I would do in life, I began to ask what I would like to become of it. Eventually I decided that I wanted to be an educator, specifically a professor of philosophy and I mapped out a road toward earning my doctorate. I followed that course until my senior year of undergrad by which time much had changed within myself.

My goal was to become a doctor of philosophy and teach, I had a burning passion to learn all I could and ignite that curiosity in others. At my university I leaped at the chance to work in the department of philosophy, to be part of the philosophy club, to volunteer in mentor ship programs; my goal was to gain as much experience as possible on the route to my doctorate. Now there is a fair point to make about overworking myself and I do think that was a factor in why I ultimately left. Importantly, however, I left because the flame of passion which had fueled me all these years had waned nearly to expiration. This post is not about the why, about the reasons I no longer felt passionate about my education; it is on how significance my reflection after I left. While I was my school, despite no longer feeling the passion for participating that I once had, I continued on the path because it was the thing to do. That is really how I saw it. Completing my education was no longer something I paired with my personal growth. Instead I put more value on the research and study that I was doing on my own. In another post I have given a greater vent toward my disappointment with higher education. It was that disappointment along with others I experienced in the community of students that damped my desire to teach. During my last semester I found myself enrolling in classes because "I need to do something to finish the degree". But I had slipped, I had had two bad semesters and the the school disqualified me.

What happened? How did a person who wanted to be an educator get to the point of being academically disqualified? Well I would say that it was because I kept following the course I planned for myself even after I had lost the desire. Now I want to make something clear. I did not get disqualified because I lost my desire to learn, no; I became disqualified because I kept trying to maintain a high level of activity without the heart to do it. Remember that I was participating in many programs in addition to a full time schedule and my social life. When my heart, my passion, where no longer in it doing all these things became chores not satisfying goals to complete. My perspective had changed leading to a change in my motivation which eventually lead to a demotivated plow through my work. Then I got the letter notifying me that I could not enroll for the next semester. At first I was deeply discouraged and felt like a failure. But these moments of setbacks are the greatest learning opportunities. Over the past months I have reflected on the causes and conditions that have lead to the moment that I am in. This reflection (to me) felt much freer than I had in the past years, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say came from different conditions. See I had always been looking toward the next step on the course I had planned at 18 and my reflections tended to wonder if I was progressing correctly or if things where happening fast enough. Occasionally I would wonder if this was what I wanted to do but I would not explore that line of thought in order to maintain myself on the path I had deemed "right". Over this last year I gave time to all my thoughts, I asked deep questions about what I wanted, I asked if what I was doing was necessarily in line with what I wanted to achieve. I was more honest about things, my perspective of higher education has changed greatly and my original plans did not adapt to reflect that, my ambition to teach has changed at the very least being a teacher in the education system we now have. Since the age of 18 I have experienced so much and learned so many different ways of teaching and sharing knowledge. Though I wondered about the education system I was still going to participate in it. Now, however, with the ability to reflect on myself and my desires I have to come to realize the opportunities to share knowledge are many and varied. Earning my degree is still a milestone goal and one that I will complete. But over the past year I have come to change my perspective on many other goals I had originally set upon and opened my eyes to the many possible paths I can take, most importantly the path that I can create on my own.

This is more in line with the idea of life affirmation, because it is our own lives that need to affirmed. We all have a story to tell and are writing it as we go along. At time we get so entangled in the way we want things to go that we can forget to listen to our own minds. We continue working a job we don't like because it is secure, we continue to go to school even if we are dissatisfied. Though it feels like we are doing the "right thing" in a very real way we are cheating ourselves of our life affirmation simply because we stopped listening to our own hearts. What began as a personal failure has become a springboard, during this past year I proceeded forward on my tentative plans for this site and made it an actuality. There is a lot that I have to learn and that invigorates me and has inspired me once more to set upon my practice of daily self-improvement with a renew sense of purpose. What was a set back has become perhaps my biggest step forward.