Reply To: Exercise 1: Personal Essay
Making good trouble and acting out of love.
Eight siblings!? Families with more the three children will never cease to amaze me. Having grown up with one sister, even three seems like a lot. Still, I relate to the desire to standout; it’s funny that I can see where I want to fit in but also be really different. I also loved being the friend that people came to for advice — I was single until 19 years old and yet somehow had wisdom to share with friends with relationship woes.
Thank you for sharing the interesting and complex (at least to me) relationship you had and remember with your mother. It seems to support the notion that nothing is simply good or bad. I can resonate with the tendency to address the negative first, even when prompted to say what went right. Although I think I’m getting better 🙂 I agree about love — the role models I spoke of (especially Nena) have given and shown me so much love that I could absorb and hopefully pass on.
I really appreciate your recognition of the potential for focus to drift. A big thing I share with people who ask what these workshops have given me is the community of like-minded people who want to improve and do good things. Without these communities its so easy for values to drift, even when they’re my most important ones.