If I’ve learned anything in the short six weeks I’ve been on the race, it’s that you learn more about yourself than the cultures you are submerged in 24/7. I have come to know more about the way my mind works, and therefore understand the way I interact with other people a lot more than I did two months ago. I’ve lived in community before (healthy and not so healthy) and I’ve had incredible people to build me up, so that wasn’t weird for me. I’ve been a part of both charismatic and traditional churches, so that’s not it either. I’ve had hard talks with people about forgiveness and resentment, so that also isn’t it. Physical circumstances (heat/rain those kinda things) don’t really wear on me badly, (although we’ve been SUPER blessed in that category) so that part isn’t too heavy either.
That part of the race that has really surprised me is how little I know about myself. I’m learning I have this ridiculous urge to meet people’s expectations as quickly as I can. It’s like some kind of obsessive people pleasing tendency. When I feel like I don’t meet the expectations of my family/my team/my friends/whoever it might be, this immense guilt takes over so much that I don’t allow anyone to talk me out of. It doesn’t matter if the request is absolutely ridiculous, or if a situation happens that is totally out of my control. I can’t help but feel the weight of the world telling me I didn’t quite live up to what was asked of me. It’s this weird correlation of feeling like I’m not giving someone/something my everything and pride that riddles me to not allow myself to fall short.
I’ve started to think about if it’s truly me not wanting to fail anyone, or if it’s me wanting to look like I can do everything in defense of that pride. I think it’s a mixture of both, but mostly the second. Every day on this race I realize more and more how selfish my tendencies are. A lot of times my initial thoughts aren’t selfish, but the motivation behind them definitely can be. My suspicion is that part of me really feels guilty for letting the person down, while the rest of me is thinking about myself.
The best way I know to combat this is to think about why I’m really getting upset. Am I thinking about myself, and not wanting to hurt that pride by falling short? OR am I putting other people ahead of myself and still upset about my short comings?
It’s something I’m working on for sure.
Thanks for reading and reading!
Alexis Sills
On a more exciting note, my team got ANOTHER route change!! We’ll be in Greece next month, instead of Bulgaria, working with Euro relief for the refugee crisis!
