Throughout our lives, each of us experience life differently. Family members that live in the same house experience the house differently depending on what room they sleep in and what their routine is.
A husband and wife experience life differently for they don’t hold the same job or do the same thing all of the time. Where we go to school, what setbacks we have experienced in life all make us unique. No one else ever experiences the same life that we do. No one.
Expressing our uniqueness occurs daily. How we interact with others. What worldview we cling to in trying to make sense of everything that happens in our day. Our uniqueness expresses itself in big ways as to where we choose to spend our time. What we enjoy reading. The music or TV shows we make time to see. Our uniqueness also manifests itself in the frown or smile we share with someone, in a brief moment, depending on the way our day is going.
The confusing aspect of our uniqueness is that, on the one hand, it can be a source of great strength and energy. Our perspective combined with our life experiences can drive us to incredible bursts of creativity and immeasurable strength in our resilience when needed.
But on the other hand, it can be a great weakness, when we define our uniqueness as a destination where we have already arrived. Where we use our uniqueness as an excuse for the way we choose to behave. When our uniqueness is the only argument we have when we become defiant, unreasonable, and mad.
The confusing aspect of our uniqueness is in its duality of being a strength and a weakness. Many times we hide from others who we truly are because we are scared for them to see us exposed, walking hand in hand with our weaknesses. Other times we use it as a shield and an excuse when convenient.
A second aspect that causes confusion is misjudging how broad our experiences really are. What I mean by this, is that we sometimes hold on to our worldviews that make us unique without ever understanding how narrow our views are because we haven’t seen much of the world.
To end this confusion we must come to understand that our uniqueness must evolve. That we need to keep adding to our experiences, to make time for new learning, and to embrace new friends along our life’s journey.
We need to understand that the strength we all have within can be nurtured and developed when we embrace who we are and understand who we would like to become. That our uniqueness is never a finished product. Where during this journey, filled with twists and turns, we will be tested so that we better understand both how far we have traveled and what distance we still need to go.
It is one of the few times I can think of where the more birthdays we celebrate and the broader the experiences, the closer we come to bringing clarity to the confusion that our uniqueness challenges us with throughout our lives.