Environment
“Environment: the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates”
I saw this picture and wasn’t sure what to think. The young man is standing in the middle of heaps of trash, with a working calculator in his hand. I’m trying to determine if he found the calculator in the trash or was it already in his pocket? The calculator doesn’t fit. But the boy being surrounded by trash just spoke to me. All I could think was, what kind of environment is he growing up in? What kind of environment did you grow up in? Also, what was the one working thing that helped you, especially as a child?
When we were born we had no control over our environment. No choice whatsoever, there was nothing we could fix or update, add to or take away. We were brought in to those surroundings, in full need of support and care. From our families we needed love and protection, from our mom we needed nourishment, from our homes we needed warmth, from furniture we required a place to sit or lay our heads, from siblings we needed laughs and connection, from our neighborhoods clean air and shops. Each location/ surrounding, providing us with sustenance. What happens when your environment doesn’t/hasn’t provided the sustenance you believe you need/needed? May be there was love but no protection, warmth but no nourishment, possibly laughs but little connection, or maybe no clean air at all. Even worse, what if you didn’t receive anything, were basically abandoned?
My environment was great, at least I thought it was. My mom and dad doing all they could to “raise me right.” Whatever that means! But even in that, it wasn’t perfect. I didn’t grow up around extended family. Most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins were hours away. So I spent the majority of my childhood alone. Remember that idea about connection, I didn’t experience much of it. That made life tough for me starting as an adolescent, when my quirkiness kicked in. When my love for sports, snails, and all “non-girly” kicked in. Now when I went to make friends my interests didn’t align with theirs and my lack of connection with family made it difficult to learn how to connect with possible friends. Now in school and at extracurricular activities I always felt weird and un-wanted. Now, what I thought was a great environment, was feeling more deficient because I couldn’t get it to work for me.
Our environments contribute to who we are, who we become. My environment felt empty, for others, like the photo above, it feels full, possibly full of “garbage.” How do you proceed? Were you able to make it work for you? Maybe you figured out how to get the most out of it. The young man in the picture has a working calculator, a tool used to help find results. For me, I decided to use my lack of connection to learn to enjoy myself. I learned how to enjoy me. I tell people all the time, “me, myself, and I get along very well.” I decided, with some guidance from my father, to learn how to have fun on my own, learn how to put a smile on my own face. This was a hard lesson to learn at fifteen year old, but I do believe I’m better for it.
But when do we learn that parts of our environments are/were deficient? The reality is, no one gets everything they need. If we did, we’d be perfect. Just not possible. Even those that appear to have everything, there is deficiency in that, too much of any thing breeds shortcomings as well.
But back to the question, when do we realize the deficiencies of our environments? Is it as a child when we compare to neighbors or the kids at school, or maybe it’s middle school when our parents are working multiple jobs and barely home, or could it be high school where our eyes begin to open to the failures within our families. It could even be the pollution in the neighborhoods or surrounding areas. As we leave adolescents our eyes are opened to the reality of humanity and it’s frailties. This being both hard to accept, even more so acknowledge, and most difficult to work through, is part of the path to becoming our best selves.
So, our eyes are now fully wide open. We see the world and others as they are, how do we move forward? That question is the first step. Asking about moving forward, is a sign that you not only see the deficiency but recognize change is needed. The response, change your environment, within or with-out. When our environments are not giving us what we need we must determine if it they have the capacity to address our needs or if we need to change them completely.
Changing environments, especially the ones we’ve come accustomed to, can be difficult. Like you may have heard, there are times and seasons. Once you recognize you need something different, it’s ok! Your time in the old environment has come to an end. Don’t feel bad, look forward to the new environment ahead, continue to respect the challenges the previous environment and work to improve yourself.
Don’t be afraid! Change your environment!
#thoughtlifeco
