The moment I realized I was wrong...

"I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine."
-- Indigo Girls

The hardest thing about living in this world is trying to block it out. Not that you shouldn't participate in it, but rather that you shouldn't let it participate in you. It's so easy to build yourself up with the titles and labels of your resumé; SGA Director, VP of your sorority, member of various prestigious standing committees, etc. But none of those positions hold any value in describing you. Sounds like a simple concept, yet one that is so easily pushed aside. I spent my whole life trying to better myself on paper, it only took one moment to realize how wrong I was.

I was in the Salinas Grandes which is a 3,200 mi^2 salt desert in the Córdoba providence of the Sierras de Córdoba in Argentina. Because of the extreme concentration of salt in this area no life can be sustained, meaning no plants, no animals, not even insects. It was the most incredible sight, I felt like i was on the moon. You'd look in any direction and see the white, salt covered ground stretched towards the horizon. But as inspiring as the view was, the night was actually more eye-opening. The sun went down and I just started to run into the blackness. Without having to worry about direction, speed, or potential obstacles, it was freeing. It was the perfect physical experience to mirror the inner turns I was making in my life. I ran blindly until I tired and threw myself into the sand. As I laid in the silence I realized I was the only living thing for miles around. I could scream or sing or jump or think with no witnesses nor anything to effect with my presence. But that didn't mean my actions didn't count. I made one of the most important discoveries of my life in that desert and no one, until now, had even known I was there.


I had searched every source for some definitive in my life, but it wasn't until I took everything else out of the picture that I was able to see that what was left was what mattered the most.