Your Life Isn't for You by Seth Adam Smith

Author:Seth Adam Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

6

Knock Down the Wall

One can choose to go back toward

safety or forward toward growth.

Growth must be chosen again and again;

fear must be overcome again and again.

—ABRAHAM MASLOW, PSYCHOLOGIST

After the Giant had shown the children that he was no longer a selfish Giant, he turned to them and declared, “It is your garden now, little children.” He then took his great ax and knocked down the wall.

Each of us has built walls of one form or another. They may be fiercely defensive walls built out of anger and hatred, or they may simply be precautionary walls built out of fear and pain.

Some walls may be justifiable defenses, built to keep you from hurting yourself or being hurt by another. But often, these walls keep out more life than originally intended.

I was made aware of this fact when I was contacted by a Russian girl named Galena, a native of Nakhodka whom I had known while living there.

Galena had moved to the United States to study English and pursue her education. Perpetually peaceful, warm, and serene, Galena is like a living embodiment of the harbor in which she was raised. Friendly as she was, Galena contacted me a number of times, wanting to know how I was doing and maybe hang out. Still embittered by my past experiences, I did my best to wall Galena out of my life. I just didn’t want anything to do with Russia.

In the fall of 2007, I received an e-mail from Galena. In it, she said this: “Seth, I pray that you are healthy. Is everything OK with you? If you need any help or someone to talk to, you can always ask me, the door is always open for you. I just want to be your friend.”

Imagine how perfectly rotten I felt after reading that. Here I was, earnestly laboring to reinforce a wall that would keep Russians out of my life. And yet, on the other side of that wall stood a Russian girl who promised to always leave the door of friendship open to me.

Galena’s words prompted the next stage in my desire to change: I decided to “tear down my wall” (face my fear) by returning to Russia. Over the course of two years, that country had evolved into the embodiment of everything I had feared. But I was tired of living in fear. I was tired of building walls and hiding behind them.

And so, after doing a bit of research, I found an English teaching program that took me to Moscow, the very heart of Russia (go big or go home, right?). It seemed like a great deal. The only problem with the program was that it required me to live with a Russian host family.

Although my “stranger-danger” alarms were ringing like the Hunchback of Notre Dame on a Monster19 energy drink, I heard something quite different in a quiet corner of my heart. It was a memory—the gentle voice of Erich: “I do know that the only thing that matters is that you learn to love people.

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