Epiphany
3.) (a) A moment of sudden intuitive understanding; flash of insight (b) a scene, experience, ect. that occasions such a moment.
At no point should one ever consider that they, having experienced an epiphany or experienced almost anything at all for that matter, can appropriately or accurately convey the true meaning of such comprehension to another being. Without the true experience, you can talk until your blue in the face and your meaning and intentions will undoubtedly be incomprehensible. (ref: being a “teenager”)
Epiphany One - 1995 - Age 18
Perspective
3.) (a) The relationship or proportion of the parts of a whole, regarded from a particular standpoint or point in time.
I can remember the day as if it were yesterday. Sitting on my couch in front of the T.V. just like the previous five or six hundred days, thinking about nothing in particular as usual when I actually sat straight up with this first epiphany. Only once in my life have I ever actually gotten chills of excitement over a realization. My life changed in an instant.
My mother refers to this time in my life when I went to bed as usual one day and got up two years later. That is a wholly accurate depiction of my life at that time. All I did was sleep, eat and exist; barely. And had it not been for my mother's compassion and understanding of my true situation, I may not have ended up where I am today. She was wise enough, or came to be wise enough, to let me come to terms with my depression on my own. Hence, all that time in bed and on the couch.
I don't typically refer to the state I was in during this time as clinical depression. Depression has a stigma and may convey the wrong idea. I have been depressed before, we all have. A mood, loss of a loved one, a bad day; all reasons to feel particularly down for a time. At this point in my life a don’t believe I was depressed, although my doctor and mother may disagree. I believe I was “growing up.” I believe that I naturally took the environment I was in, loaded it all up at the same time and crashed. Hard.
Having been a good student throughout my whole life I had set myself to a certain standard. When I couldn’t maintain that standard I hit the wall and shut down entirely. Having 16 year old blood pumping through my veins at this time I would say my success was at least slightly jeopardized. Breaking up with your first serious love after two strong years takes it’s toll.
Thus I came to the aforementioned, vegetative state. And nothing sobers up the drunkenly depressed like a quick, sudden unexpected epiphany like perspective. I was obviously “out of whack” and misaligned when this hit and I truly and finally did “snap out of it.”
The take on the whole situation was convenient and appropriate. I had a wholly encompassing view of the situation and was in an environment that could be no better for taking in this massive but basic realization. I still shudder at the magnitude of the realization that simply life is how you see it. Life is what you make it to be.
I still remember and hold true to it and it obviously makes me a better and calmer person. My life turned around almost within the week and I was back on track taking care of a rising priority called “just being happy.” There’s a lot to be said for realizing flat out that you can be happy, you should be happy, and that you are happy. Look at any apparently negative situation in a different way and it isn't as bad as you think. Maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s destiny, but when that bad thing happens to you, see it for what it really is. I’ll stake a lot betting that you’ll survive and live to see the next day. And even if you don’t, it doesn’t matter anymore does it? Should it in the first place?
I have one example I like to give representing this practice: I’m rushing to my car one day to run from my house to my parents. I’m thinking and moving so fast that I failed to notice that my car had been broken into. I come to the realization on the road half way to my destination eleven blocks away but I’m not worried because I don’t leave things in my car overnight when I park in the back. Then it came to me four blocks later: my cell phone. Some idiot had broken into my car to steal my cell phone. Well I can think of a number of people who’s whole day, week or month would be ruined by this tragic loss. Instead, I actually have this “meant to be” thought and go about my business uninterrupted. Now I’m human and the first feeling is rage and justice, but what’s the point? Am I going to be pissed off enough to materialize my cell phone back? So I let it go, and for good reason I find out later. When I called my cell phone carrier and explained the situation to them, they gave me a new model cell phone far superior to my previous and put me on a new payment plan that actually had more minutes at a lower price. So look at it. Some moron lowered my monthly cell phone bill. Then even more, I get a call on my new cell phone about two weeks later. It’s a woman who found a cell phone in a park across town and dialed the number that came up when she turned it on. That’s right, I got my old cell phone back. Now, how much of my life would I have wasted worrying and stressing out about the whole situation needlessly?