little moments...

While talking to my students today, we discussed (it was really me talking to one particular student, while the rest listened about a prompt for a scholarship essay) about defining moments in a person's life, and how it's really the little moments in one's life that characterize a person. And while I was saying this, I found what I was saying to be quite enlightening - that usually how my moments of enlightenment come about, because while talking I am able to associate things more easily than I do while thinking to myself, and I then realize that whatever I was discussing/lecturing upon is an interesting idea that I hadn't really though long upon before.

So, thinking out loud while talking to the class, I was discussing about how it's small moments that define a character. I mean, think about it, how often is our character challenged and we are forced to confront drastic disastrous events? Instead, it's the small decision that really affect who we are as a person, and how we perceive ourselves and others. Instead of looking at the moments of trauma that are supposedly defining our person, we should instead look at how we interact with others, and what we do to define ourselves. In these small moments, where we make decisions upon things that are usually more subconscious than conscious, we are living the moments that define us. Because it is in these moments that we are guided by our rules of life that have been instilled in us by figures of influence and power.

However, despite being aware of these figures of influence pressed upon my life, I am still constrained by their desires and restrictions upon me. In consequence, many might feel that they need to rebel against these very limits that have been forced upon them. Yet, I do not feel that these very things that have been placed upon me have hurt me in any way. In fact, I think many times, by being aware of the desire for not being punished, I have followed the correct paths, and those paths have led me to where I am today. So, regardless of the fact that I have been placed in these shackles by others, these very confinements have set me free - at least to a certain extent - and allowed me to follow a path that none have been able to manipulate or coerce away from me.