Coming Alive

A few years ago my best friend and I wandered around the streets of London seeking adventure. At the exact moment that this story takes place, actually, I believe we were looking for the perfect tea cup to take home to her mother, but adventure seemed to await around every corner that summer. We happened upon a cobble stoned courtyard full of life and color. In the midst of the revelry we saw a paneled chalkboard with three quotes. “Treat everyone the same because everyone is different.” and “To love is to trust someone into your translucence.” were both beautiful quotes, but the one in the middle was the one that struck me as the most important. As the one that made this moment worth remembering, 

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

People who have come alive.

This concept stuck with me for years—ingrained from that moment onto my heart—continually shining its beautiful face through decisions that I’d made and people that I'd met. At times I would repress it, thinking that it went against what I’d been taught, but then I would find it again in the loveliest of places and remember who I was. I’d only ever wanted to be truly alive.

A week ago I finished reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I’d heard of the book before, but never had a true interest in reading it until it was given to me as a gift. I lost myself in that world. I found Howard Roark to be bold and absolutely wonderful. I found Ellsworth Toohey to be the scum of the earth, but what I saw most was the bold resurgence of this concept.

“Come alive.” The book screamed at me. “Why hold back? It is okay to be ‘selfish’ if your ‘selfishness’ is something that makes you true to who you are. You cannot be anyone else and that is what makes you beautiful.”

(and I heard God whispering the same into my heart, "I've been trying to tell you this for so long. I made you as you. Not as anyone else. Find peace in that truth. Who you are is enough. I'll worry about the rest.")

I learned a lot of lessons from this book. I could write reviews and analyze the different things that I saw, but the thing I continually return to is the concept that floored me in London in that little cobblestoned courtyard.