BorderLine

Most people don’t guess, or should I say judge, that I’ve been through very much in my life. I’m fair enough looking, not extra beautiful or anything. I dress moderately enough and present myself simply and respectfully enough. I’m always kind and polite and can be very quiet and professional when I need to be. From the surface I look very normal and average, however if you look a little deeper or get to know me better you will find that I’ve seen a lot in my lifetime for only 26 years old.

Because of the many households I lived in and the different people I experienced growing up, I learned acceptance and resiliency at an extremely young age. I wouldn’t have survived long or happily if I hadn’t, so it wasn’t really a choice. Being around such vastly different people and living in households with different parenting styles, disciplining techniques, and just basic views and morals I learned to accept difference and change. Rather than shy away from, or be uncomfortable with differences I learned to have a fascination with them. And in combination with my ability to strive on after severe trauma, abuse and neglect, I have gained a unique perception of life.

I have seen how ugly and cruel the world is and how awful people can be, but yet I have endless empathy and love for others so much so that my life long goal is to help as many people as I can. I have also seen how different people can be, even ones who live in the same place, look alike or even have the same parents, and I appreciate the utter beauty in these differences. When I look at a person, I see the DNA and the environment that DNA grows in. I see nature and nuture and the infinite possibilities of the combination of the two, which is astounding to me. So I revel in and enjoy the fact that no two people are the same, therefore no two views or ideas can be the same.

Both of these learned perceptions together have caused me to be unsure and skeptical of everything. This can have it’s faults (I’m very indecisive and need reassurance about things I already know). However, mostly it just allows me to see that there is more than one or two or three (and on and on) sides to every story/person/place/thing/idea/experience/etc. I question and research and look into every peice of information I’m given and even then, I understand that after all that work, I could still be completely wrong about what I think.

I have not encountered many people with this same view of the world. I’ve met a few like minded individuals but they’ve been rare and very few. With the social media storm and how easy it is to share information (mindless or not) I would have thought the opposite would be true. However, it seems that people are set in their views and easily outraged when they encounter information that does not align perfectly with them.

It can be quite unsettling to live in constant wonder and skepticism, and likely is one cause of my anxiety. However it would be much more unsettling (for me) to be so absolutely and completely sure of any one thing that I dismiss any other information or worse don’t even look for it. I would rather live with being unsettled, and forever borderline about everthing because the risk of possibly closing my mind to more knowledge and understanding is much greater than that of my bruised ego wanting to be right.

I choose to be fluid with life and the flow of information, rather than be someone it dies with. To me nothing is certain which means every piece of information I can take in with my senses is an opportunity for growth.