By Marianne Furtado de Nazareth –
“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” – Aldous Huxley
Thought provoking Huxley – as always. We are born hoping to change the world and then instead, throughout one’s life, there are certain moments that fundamentally change you and your perspective. This could involve finding a new viewpoint for world events, your relationship with another human being, or discovering some hidden truth that unlocks new wisdom.
For me personally, a thought provoking homily is what one hopes for when attending weekly Sunday Mass. I have always desired a homily which will give me a thoughtful spark, to ruminate over in my life for the week ahead. As a child I day dreamed through the homily and most of the service, but today I search for that fragment of thought, to get my fire burning through an inspiring and stimulating homily.
The Easter Sunday homily here in Knoxville Tennessee did that for me. The priest who was preaching was the Parish priest, a senior man who joined the priesthood after living a full and happy married life. Once his wife died he decided to join and minister in a local parish. His flock loved him as his homily’s were straight from the heart, with experience as the key, like the one I was listening to.
“What was your most life changing moment that you can remember?” he began on Easter Sunday. “What changed your life from what it had been, to something completely different?” And one could literally see the entire congregation begin to think.
“ My life changing moment was when I became a parent,” he said and that could be true for us all. We become completely different individuals when we become parents. As amazing as it is, becoming a parent for the first time has its challenges: You’re navigating a major life transition on little sleep and without the benefit of experience. But you adjust, your confidence grows and the stretches of sleep at night extend—and you may soon feel up for expanding your family again.
When you do, don’t be surprised if everything feels less intense. Science proves becoming a mother for the first time is generally more intense both physically and emotionally, than the experience with later children.
“First-time motherhood is so hard because it’s just so new. No matter how much you prepare, there’s no way you can fully be ready for everything that comes with it,” said my Mum when it was time for my first born.
Your body changes more with the first pregnancy It all starts with how pregnancy alters your body. Your brain structure goes through long-lasting changes. “Radical” surges of hormones transform your body and mind. And that’s what’s happening inside.
Life-changing moments can happen several times in one’s life and quite unexpectedly. The time when I graduated high-school and joined college. For me, it was life-changing, leaving home and going to live in a hostel in Mumbai to study. You can’t plan such moments and you have no idea when they’ll hit you. However, they make you who you are and, if you let them, they can have a hugely positive impact on your life– assuming you look at them constructively.
Once I had my kids, I was unsure of what more I wanted to do in my life, till one day, I got an email from a writer, asking me to edit his books in California. I was educated and skilled but lacking the confidence of doing a good job. I flew down with some trepidation, unsure of the job I was about to handle in a foreign land. But, lucky for me it worked well and I was able to get over the fear to follow my passion.The British author I worked for, taught me to give up pen and paper and work only on the computer while writing, for both on his book as well as mine. My success was life changing and it hit me like a 10-ton truck at full speed.
Till then, I was still making decisions based on what would make me happy and monetarily successful. I was making decisions based partly on what society and my own fear of failure dictated. The problem with that is you edit things out of your mind, which might be your true passion just because society– and therefore your mind– has deemed them hopeless pursuits. If they don’t check off both boxes, they’re not considered.
It was in that moment that I found myself again. That high -school girl, the writer, who while acquiring several incredible lessons along the way had largely lost her heart all those years and forgotten what filled her with passion and purpose.
Fear and the pressure of societal expectations had driven my life on a subconscious level for years– but no longer. I realized that a life lived not following one’s passion is a life wasted– filled with regret and “what ifs?”.
Life is short and never perfectly safe, no matter how hard you try to surround yourself in a perfectly protected bubble of self-comfort, so you either take the risks or life will take them for you. You live with risk, knowing you gave your all to realize your dream or die with regret not knowing what could have been.
Life is best described as unpredictable. With so many highs and lows, each experience leaves us wiser than before. But, there are some touching incidents that alter the very core of our faith and beliefs. We all have that one life-changing experience, which changed our perspective and the way we look at things; that one moment that hit us so hard and brought about a significant fundamental change in our personality.
It doesn’t take long to have a life-changing experience. Sometimes a travel jaunt will do it. Sometimes a chance encounter is sufficient. Sometimes a moment can be enough time, to create a permanent life change.
Many decades later when I connected with a Soup Kitchen that fed the homeless and hungry in Bangalore. I connected to the vision of me that the poor reflected back, through their eyes. In their eyes, I saw the beauty, the strength, the love, and the power that they saw in me, and I simultaneously saw that it is in every one of us. Since that time, it has been impossible for me to continue to live the lie, that who I am does not really matter, in the great scheme of things. I know that it does.
We all have life changing moments, it just depends on us if we are willing to see them as life changing and grasp the opportunity with both hands and effect that change.
Dr Marianne Furtado de Nazareth,
Former Asst. Editor, The Deccan Herald, &
Adjunct faculty St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science, Bangalore.