A Piece Of My Heart

The Keys to being Human

What rites of passage have you experienced that you think everyone will experience at some point in their life? In other words, tell us about your notable experiences that are key to the human experience.

From the "Invalid Item" 

This is a great prompt for this week. Talking about experiences is a bit nebulous, but forcing one's self to think about the key experiences vital to being human is a whole new challenge. Let me see if I can get a list going here:

Loving another being more than yourself.

This is actually the second thing I thought of to add to the list, but I moved it above the first thing because this needs to happen before the second bullet can have the full effect. When I say "loving another being more than yourself," it is inclusive of all beings on Earth. I know a person is still a person even if they never love another human being (and the question asked for things "everyone" will experience), so a "being" in this case can include animals, plants, people or anything else outside of yourself. Loving another is vital to the human existence. We are designed to love and receive love. We crave connection and need love to develop appropriately. Care and compassion for another living creature is something everyone should experience. It manifests in many ways, but for me, love is when I care first about their needs over my own.

The pain of losing a loved one.

Now, having something/someone you love taken away from you is a fact of allowing yourself to love them in the first place and is thus inextricably intertwined with the first bullet. Fear of loss is not a reason to forbid yourself from loving another. Both emotions (love and loss) are necessary to the human existence. Feeling true sorrow is obviously painful, but reminds us of the fragility of life and why we should make the most of every moment we have.

Being truly comfortable in your own skin.

This is one I can only speculate at and refer to role models in my own life because I haven't reached this point yet. Being able to love your body, inside and outside, without worrying about what other people think of you, is a rite of passage that I hope everyone will experience at some point in their life. As I said, I'm not there yet, but I'm using my mother's experience as an example. She is unabashedly herself. When you meet her, she exudes fearlessness, honesty, joy, and safety. She is content with herself and her abilities. She embraces her flaws and leans on her strengths. She is not self-conscious. I know this because I've witnessed the change in her as I've grown older. She used to be down all the time and concerned about her body, hair, career, etc. Now, she loves herself first and foremost, and that allows her freedom to develop her passions without the need to impress anyone else. She's a woman I admire and hope one day to be the same figure for my own children.