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Sometimes we know we are in the right place, that we are exactly where we are meant to be.
Sometimes we are pretty sure we’d rather be someplace else. Perhaps we long for the place we were before, the place of happy memories. Perhaps we think we could have a much more fulfilling life someplace else.
For whatever reason, we have times where we are unhappy with our current place.
But we should never use that as an excuse for not being all we can be.
Feeling like a transplant
When I was in tenth grade, my family moved from Pittsburgh to Houston. In the middle of the school year!
I was not happy about this. I did not want to leave my friends, my school, and my childhood home. But I had no choice.
So there I was, half-way across the country, in a school full of strangers. And since this was in the dark ages before email, cell phones, texting and skype, my only connection to old friends was through snail mail.
I was an unwilling transplant. I could have spent the remainder of my high school years feeling sorry for myself and complaining about everything that was “not as good as it was in my old school/town/neighborhood.” I could have decided to hate my new place and refused to bloom there.
But during the very first day in my new school, in the middle of German class we began talking about our books we’ve read (don’t ask me why) and a classmate mentioned one of my favorites.
From that one random point of connection I discovered not just one friend but an entire group, many of whom became my best friends during the remainder of high school. We hung out, we went to movies, we got involved in high school plays and other activities. We had such fun together.
I guess I decided to bloom after all.
I will admit that I took the first opportunity to leave Texas and return to Pennsylvania, but the two-and-a-half years I spent in Houston were not wasted. In fact, I participated in many activities that would not have been available had I not moved. I may have remained a staunch Yankee , but I decided to make the best of my transplanted situation.
Where are you right now? Are you happy with your current place or do you wish for someplace else?
Either way, I hope you can find a way to bloom wherever you are.
Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can. ~ John Wesley
