My Path to Self-Discovery...

11/18/04

...I’ll send you an e-mail when I get there...

Imagine a shy little girl growing up in a pretty strict Catholic home. She’s not terribly outgoing, so she doesn’t have nearly as many friends as her very popular younger sister. In fact, one of her teacher actually sends a note home from school that says, in effect, the little girl is too quiet. Like many quiet people, she has a tough time making friends. Instead, she immerses herself in every kind of book imaginable. She also proves to be quite a good writer. In fact, in the third grade she wins an award for the best Halloween short story.

For her first job, she works as a junior clerk at House of Fabrics, where she collects the first of many fabric caches, some of which actually followed her through a half-dozen moves. High school is challenging for her — not academically, but because of the awkwardness of trying to fit in at a Catholic girls’ school. She finally finds a circle, among her boyfriend’s friends at the adjoining Catholic boys’ school.

When they break up at the start of her sophomore year in college, she is bereft, because in losing him, she’s lost her social network.

It’s funny how life seems to divide up into segments. When I broke up with Anthony — the high school boyfriend — I thought the world was going to end. It didn’t. Then there was the After Anthony Period. Next came the Tony Era — not to be confused with Anthony, mind you . . . these were two distinctly different individuals.

With Tony, I had a son whom we placed for adoption. So within the Tony Era, there was Before the Adoption, After the Adoption, and — thankfully — the After-Tony Era.

The After-Tony Era and the Phoenix Interval, so far, seem to be one in the same. The Phoenix Interval is about to celebrate its 5-year anniversary, coming up next month, in fact. I suppose the Phoenix Interval could be segmented into the Time I Had a Real Job and the day I quit that real job to Live a Life of Purpose, as opposed to having life happen to me in a way that was only pleasing to others.

Which brings me to today. Standing here. In front of you. Telling you about my life, and my path of self-discovery.

Let me fill in a few blanks. I did graduate from the University of Arizona with a degree in nonfiction writing. I worked at the Arizona Daily Star as a research librarian for nearly 7 years. I moved to New York and worked at a Wall Street investment bank for six years. I learned to be a kick-ass word processor. I found a family for the son I was not ready to raise. I finally got tired of existing alone in my relationship with his father, and moved back to Arizona.

Somewhere along the way there, I grew into quite an accomplished writer. I got to be pretty good at graphics and layout. I threw myself out there as a speaker, and seem to do OK with that, as well. I learned to sew and craft. I’m still a voracious reader.

And through it all, I never really thought of myself as a people person. For the longest time, I’d join a club or start a new job or somehow become part of a new group of people, and I was always amazed when people knew my name. I often knew theirs — but for some reason, I never expected them to know who I was. It just didn’t occur to me that I made an impression on anyone. But I did. And I do.

I’ve taken a few of those self-evaluation/personality tests over the last year or so. Because I’ve always been so strong with language, I expected that my writing skills would be the strongest. Imagine my surprise, again, when with each of several different tests, I consistently scored the highest in ability to relate to other people.

Maybe I should identify this as my Relational Phase.

As I was thinking about those personality tests, it occurred to me that all of us have skills in every of the measurable areas. The thing that differs from person to person is the degree of our qualification or achievement in each area. For example: the degree of happiness we experience, the degree of intelligence, the degree of our analytical skills, the degree of our creativity, the degree of our athletic ability, the degree of our socialization, the degree of our ability to organize, the degree of how satisfied each one of us is with his or her life.

I know I have been blessed with many talents. I’m really, really good at lots of things, like writing and sewing and most creative avenues. But there are other, more mundane things where I have lots of room for improvement — like balancing my checkbook, car maintenance, and relationships with my immediate family.

I think it’s human nature to gravitate toward the things we’re naturally good at; and likewise, we shy away from the stuff we find tedious or troublesome. But the key to living a fulfilled life that is not unnecessarily challenging is to find a degree of balance among all the aspects that make us who we are. It’s kind of like getting all the settings on your stereo just so — bass, treble, fade, volume.

I have a whole list of intentions for my life. Some days I say them several times; other days not at all. But each day there is one intention I say throughout the day, and that is my prayer — my request — to know the next right thing for myself and for my life.
I’ve come a long way since being that prim and proper little girl who never, ever, ever stepped out of line. But self-discovery is a process. If we think we’ve gotten there, where we really are is in a rut.

I want to leave you with a saying I love — you may have seen it on a bumper sticker.

Well-behaved women seldom make history.
My goal is to find a degree of balance between being that good girl and being a history-maker.

_____________________________________________________
This was my "Ice Breaker" speech for my Toastmasters club. Airpark Toastmasters meets every Thursday at noon at the Raintree & 101 University of Phoenix campus in Scottsdale, Arizona. Check the TV monitor in the vestibule for the room number. Guests are always welcome!