React

There are two types of people:

                                                Those who say: “If only you knew.”

                                                And those who say:  “Here’s why.”

Take a look at your life and consider: what moments have shaped your life the most? 

 Oftentimes the most beautiful things come from factors that might be deemed painful and negative.

Subjecting graphite to high pressure/ high temperature (HPHT) environments gives you a diamond.

Erosion gives us beautifully-smooth rocks, glass, and touristic views such as the Grand Canyon.

Extreme acidic and basic cleaners make everything sparkle. 

Pearls come from oysters reacting to irritants. 

Even our creation started from dust.

Our lives work in the same way:  most negative events that occur in our lives are the shapers of who we are.  This can result in something beautiful, like a diamond, or we can let the negative events shape us into something worse…

And so, we have two types of people:

               

                Those who say, “If only you knew my story.” 

                And those who say “Here’s why I am.”

These two types aren't necessarily that different from each other.  After all, the theme in this article is “past” and we all have our fair share of a past (whoa!) that always leads into our person today.  This isn't a new concept; we've got loads of quotes on it:

"The past is never dead.  It's not even past." -William Faulkner
"Study the past if you would define the future."  -Confucius
"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real." -Cormac McCarthy
"The past isn't passed.  It's still shaping the present." -John Green

But while our past may have shaped who we are now, the affect could have been positive or negative.  Certainly, the affect could not have been neutral by the simple fact that we are emotionally neutral in life (at least, I have not yet encountered entire societies composed of robots or of  Keanu Reeves). 

Making diamonds, smooth rocks, and even our creation from dust are all examples of naturally harmful and negative environments creating something beautiful. 

But we are beyond nature.  We are beyond nature in that our senses, emotions and (most importantly) will can make us react differently to these negative events in our life.  Still, they will always affect us. 

If I cut my hand off, I can react a number of ways—all of which would involve frantic screaming—but my hand will always be a hook or wooden hand in the future (I’d choose hook). 

So we know that while we all react differently, we are all still affected, and that affect—coupled with its reactions—make up our character today. 

In chemistry, we have negative reactions and positive reactions.  In humanity, we have the same thing.  People can react negatively by withdrawal, guilt, depression, despair, anger, and inconstancy.  These negative reactions often keep one at his same place; they prohibit moving on to build character or—at least—from truly becoming our true selves as we were designed to be: happy. 

On the other hand, those who react positively—through patience, fortitude, empathy, and forgiveness (of self and others)—can continue through life and build better character that is geared toward their own happiness. 

Later, I will discuss how these negative reactions are debilitating (and leave us a shadow of our true selves), how we can grow from negative to positive reactions, and how to combat future negative events in our lives.  

Thanks for stopping by and reading.  If you have any questions or comments and would even like something related to be discussed I will be happy to reply! Hey, you can even leave a comment just to say hey back! 

Take care,

Damien