My Grandmother and I don’t always agree on
things. Alright I’ll be honest, most of
the time we don’t agree on things. While
I was at my Grandmother’s house for the holidays we were watching an old
episode of the Cosby show. Mr. Huxtable
was giving Denise’s boyfriend a hard time because he said he wanted to “find
himself” before he went off to college.
My Grandmother had to laugh because she never understood the concept of
“finding yourself” as many people in my generation refer to it as. She grew up in a time where people came back
from war, got married, had kids, and worked the same job until they retired. Times have changed quite a bit from the
“greatest generation” to my generation, the millennials. I often find it difficult to relate to the
ways in which my Grandmother grew up but I don’t think that finding yourself is
necessarily a generational thing.
Now
this depends on the definition of “finding yourself”. Finding yourself is more than just working at
Starbucks for a year after you finish college while you decide what to do
next. It doesn’t mean you have to travel
to Europe for a month long backpacking trip and experience different
cultures. In fact I would argue that you
could even live the same lifestyle of those who grew up in my Grandparent’s
generation and still find yourself. I
recently read a book called Rediscover Catholicism by Matthew Kelly. In this book Kelly talks about becoming the
best version of yourself. It is this
best version of ourselves who we should all be striving to become.
God
created us all uniquely and as individuals.
Everyone on this planet is created differently than another. We all have talents and weaknesses. We all have the ability to achieve greatness
in God’s eyes. However, God also gave us
free will which means we have the ability to ignore what God has given us. We can turn our backs on God as we please and
we often do. But it is when we truly
embrace the talents and live according to God’s will that we become the best
version of ourselves. This is what the
saints did. Kelly reminds us that the
saints were not born as saints but somewhere along the way they decided to
dedicate their lives to God in everything they did. So I would argue that finding yourself
doesn’t need to involve traveling halfway around the world, living in hostels,
and learning a new language but instead just involves choosing to let God into
your life and allowing yourself to embrace his will.
