| How does one survive life? Do we simply exist or do we fight to live? No two lives are exactly the same, so surviving life would take different skills for/from each person. And I can only address my own life. Life hasn’t always been kind to me. It’s dealt me a rough hand, and I do what I can to play those cards. If one is to believe in Karma, then this life is another test; another lesson to be learned along the path of life. That isn’t to say that my life, rough as it has been, is some payback; but an avenue to complete what I was intended to do. A way to become who I truly am - my authentic self. There are times when it is difficult to believe that my life isn’t some cosmic mistake; that the Universe isn’t making me pay in this life for some horrendous blunder I made in a former life. Yet I suppose to those who don’t believe in Karma, this view is off kilter. There are those who believe that life is what you make of it - and to some extent, I agree with that statement. I try to take the negatives in my life and turn them into positives. From what I have lived through I have been able to reach out to others who may have felt alone. Who may have never been able to give voice to their own pains, their own fears -- and I shed light on it all. I have tried to show them a way out. Fran Lebowitz once said: “Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.” I tend to agree with her. Life is something that happens - whether you choose to be present or not. That doesn’t mean that we have no control, no power to change our life, but more often than not we allow the life we live to dictate who we are. I work as a customer service representative (CSR). In some circles (such as the company I work for) I’m a verbal punching bag for those customers who choose to be abusive. Part of my job is to offer Best customer service no matter what the customer says to me. Yes, no matter what they say! I’ve been called an assortment of expletives. From bitch, to cunt (to which I simply laughed aloud) and every other cruel word you can think of. I’ve been told that I am stupid. That I must be uneducated to be doing the job I do. That I am rude, when I am simply asking the customer why they failed to make their payments for the last two months. This job, the one I have as a CSR -- will be the hardest lesson I have yet to learn and making it into something positive? Well, I haven’t quite gotten there yet. But … I do make the best of it when I am able to make just one person (customer) smile and know that even a lowly customer service representative cares. Perhaps that is the lesson. I am more than the job that I do. I have survived much. Childhood molestation (which can change the very core of your being), domestic violence (which can change your view of what love is or is not), cancer, rape, abandonment (which affects the ability to trust). Yet those cards -- those life cards, have given me insights were others see only darkness. I can't teach anyone how to survive life. That is a personal lesson that each of us must learn in their own way. There will always be days were I simply exists, and other days when I fight to live. Nevertheless, I am surviving life. |
 |
| Surviving Life by J. A. Stroud |
 |