Last year, I was talking with a professor about the challenge of college - especially in the context of tutoring students who've just arrived at college. With each class assigning their own sets of reading, assignments, and tests for which to prepare, it can be difficult to manage what seems to be like a barrage of tasks that all seem to beg for attention at the same time. Organizing time to meet the varying deadlines can seem like an insurmountable task, especially when someone is a freshman who's not used to the sometimes rigorous schedule that college demands. I imagine the transition from an undergraduate degree to a graduate degree to be similar (and one that I feel I'm approaching all too soon). With so many things to do, it's easy to get in a rut and simply tackle what seems to be the most pressing issue. The phrase the professor used to describe all this was, "Sometimes it just feels like you're putting out the biggest fire first."
Personally, I don't feel like life is any different. In fact, if anything, life works on the same principle as my college example does, just on a much broader level - seeing as how life encompasses college/school (which is a series of fires in and of itself), as well as a number of other smaller branches (family, home, finance, etc.) that house their own series of fires - hence, conflagration.
That doesn't mean, however, that I'm drawing the conclusion that all of us are dealing with our own raging infernos. Just because each of these components of life has the possibility of creating its own series of fires doesn't mean it actually does. For example: kindergarten, roller coaster testing, and organizing a camping trip hardly warrant more than candles, if you ask me. ;)
The point I'm trying to make here is the fact that our situations differ throughout life, and depending on one's circumstances, the various components in our lives can combine to create a massive and unquenchable blaze. And as much as that conflagration can be terribly large in reality, its size is nothing when compared with its effect emotionally and psychologically. The way in which each of us tackles life is different, and each of us has a breaking point at which life's situations simply seem insurmountable - where the fire is so big we don't know where to start.
Part of the science behind conflagration is due to its size. When a fire is that large, there is an immense amount of heat that rises, and as a result, a large amount of cool air rushes in, giving the fire all the air it needs to sustain itself as long as fuel is available, and continue to grow on top of that. Somehow, life seems to be able to work the same way. Life's experiences can become so difficult and complex that it's all we can do to keep the fire at the same size - let alone make it smaller. And that's assuming we feel strong enough to be in a position to even hold it back.
During my life, and even more so in the past few years, I have seen people that face emotional and psychological conflagrations that are beyond measure. For example: dealing with racism, being gay, depression and suicidal thoughts, pornography, homelessness, divorce and loss of children, religious doubts, losing a loved one - and I know this is from a limited view of a 24-year old kid living in Utah, but from that limited experience, I can say that the psychological and emotional conflagrations these individuals face are
no less threatening, damaging, or fearful as the various wildfires that have been ravaging the state over the last couple summers. And I don't say that lightly.
Life is hecka complex sometimes, I can say that from experience. But the biggest challenge, the scariest thing, the largest conflagration...is facing it alone. I know fires are scary. I know sometimes other people's fires can seem so scary or different that we don't even want to deal with them. We wouldn't know how to deal with them ourselves. I know we don't have all the answers. I know we don't know how to put out other people's fires. Heck, half the the time we don't even know how to put out our
own fires!
I'm not asking for you to tackle other people's problems - you're not meant to. It's not your life. Everyone has to tackle their own fires. But it makes a
world of difference for people with situations different than yours to feel understood and loved. So next time you meet someone with a different fire than you, don't panic. Seek to understand their flame, and love them for the candle they still hold inside themselves - and I believe
both of you will walk away stronger.
I don't believe people should get points for doing - I believe they should get points for
being.
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