Living Inside Hope

"...the very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it. Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides."

-Barbara Kingsolver from Animal Dreams


When I made the decision to become an acupuncturist, I honestly didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. When I knew it was right, I knew it was right; it came to me in a flash of inspiration from my Goddess, and I had no need to question it. I did come up with a list of reasons why I wanted to go into the field, mostly to placate my parental units rather than to make sense of it to myself. Chinese Medicine is my calling - no other word encompasses the full meaning of my experience. Job, career, vocation... these are all too small to describe how I can no longer see myself doing anything else. From the first day of school orientation until now, every day that I get to learn about Eastern medicine, every needle that I put into a classmate, every patient I see, my soul sings in ecstasy.

I used to think that in order to be happy with my life, I would have to do something epic and bold that would capture the attention of the planet and hopefully save Earth and humanity from all its trials. Naturally, I became discouraged. Talk about setting myself up to fail! Thankfully, I've recently had something of an epiphany. Not too long ago, I commented on a blog that, "The purpose of healing, in my opinion, is not to prolong life indefinitely, but to improve quality of life so that everyone has the chance to live up to their full potential." Imagine that. Imagine being able to truly help the people you meet, giving them the foundation and the tools they need to fulfill their divine purpose. It isn't change on a massive scale - it's not a cataclysmic flood that garners attention, awe, and fear, and leaves chaos in its wake. It's the expectation of spring, nurturing a seed into a sprout, encouraging a bud to blossom. It's bringing hope where there was despair and joy where there was pain. It's healing the world one person at a time and having faith that they will each make contributions of their own. It's living inside hope.