It has been a long time since I last posted a blog post. To be honest there are two reasons. The first is that the summer usually flys by very quickly, leaving me wondering where it all went. The second reason is that I have failed to find that burst of inspiration that I felt the readers of this blog deserved to read about. Well, here is that inspiration...
There is a little red lighthouse on the West side of the Island of Manhattan. It is one of the few, if not the only, lighthouse on the island. In the days before the George Washington Bridge was built this lighthouse was needed to navigate boaters in the fog and at night though what use to be a dangerous part of the river. As time passed, the giant George Washington Bridge was built making the little red lighthouse look truly "little". The community fought to keep the lighthouse standing and were successful. Although the lighthouse is no longer in operation, it still stands in the same spot underneath the bridge. There is actually a children's book written about the lighthouse which is properly titled The Little Red Lighthouse. It is a book about how a lighthouse was so important to boaters navigating the Hudson river. Then, a giant bridge is built directly over the lighthouse, drowning out its light. The little red lighthouse begins to feel inadequate until the bridge explains to the lighthouse that even though his light is small, he is still important to the boaters navigating the river. The moral of the story: Even though the lighthouses light was small, it was still important.
I know this information because I read it at the sight of the bridge and lighthouse which I discovered while running around my new home city, NYC. Please do not quote me on the book as I am working from memory here, but the general moral of the story is pretty accurate. On today's run I began to think about the past couple of days I have had. To be honest, the past two days I have had. For me, the past two days have seemed overwhelming. I not only am learning how to live on my own in a new city, but how to start from scratch at a new university. A university, that at times I question whether or not I am worthy of attending. In two days I have questioned my ability to succeed in such a huge city at such a prestigious university. I questioned it all day today until I passed a little red lighthouse on my run. You see, the lighthouse reminded me of myself. I began to see myself as the lighthouse and my new environment as the giant bridge. I, like the lighthouse, am simply intimidated by the giant bridge. I was comfortable where I was and I felt my light was important. Now, I feel overshadowed. By passing the lighthouse on my run I was able to remember the importance of the story. It does not matter how big or bright the bridge is that is overshadowing me. I still have my light and I still need to shine it until the day it is seen. I realized that like the lighthouse, I have the ability to succeed as long as I do not give into the intimidation of the large bridge. Like the lighthouse, I know who I am and what I need to do to be successful. All I need to do is keep shinning.
I feel this story speaks to a lot of us. How many times have we felt intimidated by a situation? How many times have we forgotten who we really are, only to blend into the crowd around us? We all have had situations like this. However, it is our responsibility to ourselves to understand how important our light is. We need to learn that in these intimidated situations we cannot turn off our light. Instead, we need to make them shine brighter.
If we were successful enough to get to where we are now, we will be successful enough to progress further.
Keep your light shinning and I will do the same with mine.
