RUIN: A GIFT, NOT A CURSE
“A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It’s called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came, they trashed it a long with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome’s first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins. It’s one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won’t let go of because it hurts too good.
“We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we’re afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked at around to this place, at the chaos it has endured — the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn’t been so chaotic, it’s just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert
As human beings, we have the tendency to want things to remain the way that they are. We fight against change, we fight against discomfort, and most importantly, we do our best to remain conflict-free.
It doesn’t matter if doing so requires an internal suffering that never really goes away or becoming a shape-shifter in order to maintain the peace. This is especially true in the culture we were raised in — we were taught to put our head down and to always be the “bigger person.” We were told that in doing so, we somehow become worthy of God’s blessings, as if being a martyr has anything to do with His grace or love.
Living this way does more harm than good because when one is constantly on the edge from being forced to accept entitled, irresponsible, and harmful behavior, the person has no other choice but to fall apart.
And that is what we are afraid of — the ruining of the façade we created for ourselves and our lives. We continually choose to live in misery believing at least we have a sense of belonging and comfort, which are actually fake.
Going against the grain requires a braver version of us that requires temporarily breaking the connections that have, for the most part, defined who we are. Stepping out of this so-called “comfort” for the sake of sanity is often frowned upon, but to constantly make ourselves small just to be accepted is too high of a price to pay.
Leaving the familiar can be quite overwhelming especially when we take a step towards the unknown, taking nothing with us but our broken hearts. Our sadness and loneliness give us the urge to retreat to what we’re used to regardless of what it had made us feel. We’re so afraid of ruin but more often than not, it is the ruining of what we know that saves us.
Ruin is a gift, not a curse. When we fall apart, we develop a strength that can never be found in the places we pretended to be in. Ruin is when we discover there is nothing wrong with choosing ourselves and choosing to only be in places where we are appreciated and genuinely loved. Being loved has nothing to do with being belittled or being constantly told false narratives of ourselves and it definitely nothing to do with shrinking so others won’t feel insecure.
This part of our journey is often painful, but it is where we encounter the best versions of ourselves, where we destroy what no longer serves us and grow into what we were meant to be.
since starting this column in 2014, I have met so many Filipino champions and in the heart of each of their stories, a simple truth radiated repeatedly — they were not afraid of the ruin for they knew that the ruining wasn’t the end, it was merely the beginning.
*** carlabiancaravanes.com