Connecting the Dots

Welcome back every body, I hope you’ve all had a fantastic week. It’s nearing the end of the year when I often find myself reflecting on not only the past year and its events, but on my life as a whole. See, I don’t wait for December to reflect - I’m far too eager to do that. I like to reflect as soon as my university year is over. It may be weird, but that’s just how I like it. I think that’s mainly due to the fact that in December my brain tends to work about as well as a monkey in an orchestra. So before my brain starts looking like that pink sludge at the back of my fridge let me begin.

For those of you who haven’t seen Steve Jobs’ Stanford graduation speech you should definitely check it out. The quote that I mainly wish to look at goes something like this:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards.”

Steve Jobs may be quite a controversial individual, but there is so much truth to this phrase. Life has a tendency to throw us many curve balls. We often have an excess of lemons and we get tired of making lemonade. We want to know what it’s all for, what it all means. We can only trust in something to see us through. For some people they trust in the concept of “destiny”. Others trust their instinct, their passion and others trust God.

Wherever you stand today I’m here to tell you connecting the dots is definitely easier to do in retrospect, and impossible to do any other ways. I’m no stranger to having to randomly improvise what I’ll do for the year. That’s pretty much how my entire year has been. I applied to do my honours in Industrial Psychology, but didn’t get accepted. This was the best thing that could ever have happened to me since I did my Post Graduate Certificate in Education this year. I have made some amazing friends, gotten closer to my current friends, and strengthened my relationship with my family and God. In hindsight, I think that’s what God wanted me to do this year, and after my reflection I feel that this has been one of the best years of my life.

How has your year been? In retrospect, has it been a year full of worry, doubt and uncertainty? Did you allow that to get the better of you? Or did you face the challenge head on?

Unfortunately, we may never know how certain events will change the rest of our lives, not for a long time at least. I may only know in five years time how certain events this year have shaped the rest of my life, but I will only know in five years time. Perhaps I’ll write another article then to “past Matt” saying ‘what’s up’. Who knows; all I know is that the friends I made more than five years ago helped me get through this year.

The year isn’t over yet though, so there’s still a chance something more epic and exciting will happen!

There’s always a chance that the dots will connect this year, and if they don’t then they will line up eventually. There’s always a reason for everything that happens to us, if we have faith. There’s always a silver lining when we’re willing to embrace change, embrace things that terrify us, and find meaning in adversity.

It takes time, but life is good when the dots finally connect.

Stay awesome everyone.

M