Toj

After a rudimentary education on Mayan beliefs this weekend with Omar, I am intrigued by my Mayan sign, Toj. This sign means payment - people born on this day lead intense lives and are full of emotions. They have to pay for pending things and for past lives which left them a negative outcome. I wonder if, perhaps, service is a type of spiritual payment. Could it be pre-ordained that I would find myself on a path of service to others? 

Service. Payment. Development. They are all intricately linked. Passion. Relationships. Purpose. They are all irreplaceable and at the core of what makes our individual lives rich. They are also far too often luxuries.

Because in my few years I have dabbled in many academic and career paths – international studies, psychology, medicine, political science, nonprofit management, business, and now a degree in education during which I am hardly studying only education – I’m often asked, What is it that you want to do exactly? And I am finally finding the words to begin explaining what I believe and why I’ve considered so many paths throughout school and elsewhere.

I discovered at my last job with LEADERSHIP Philadelphia that so few people take the opportunity to follow a passion – even among those for whom that luxury is in reach. That realization alone brought me to Vandy. But what I have found is that it is not education for which I am passionate. I am passionate about relationships with others, about helping them find their passion, their purpose, and follow it – what I believe brings true happiness to a life. This personal development, however, is truly a luxury. Before a person can take a risk, can change careers, can change homes, can stop supporting others to pursue a passion that person must have crossed a threshold of several things – income, education, health, and so on. This is why I pursue economic development and why my definition of “economic” development includes these many capabilities. A life that struggles to meet subsistence needs individually or for a family cannot afford the luxury of striving for other dreams – they exist in a life concerned with providing food each day; securing a roof, four walls and a bed; they suffer from diseases and injuries we barely consider maladies anymore; literacy and a full education is a luxury; and corruption pervades the very institutions intended to support them.

Therefore, my mixed-bag history is beginning to make sense. Health is pivotal for reaching a life stable enough to sustain change. Education is pivotal for reaching new goals. Income is pivotal for ensuring that no one suffers when change comes and risks are taken. Social justice and leadership are pivotal for ensuring that opportunities are available to all, not just those with deep pockets. There are tools and solutions in every discinpline, making my curiosity understandably strong in many directions. My passion is filled when I can help someone find their own passion, which breeds true happiness, I believe. And while I find joy in helping those at home, the complexity of overcoming the entrenched problems in places like Guatemala makes the realization of others’ dreams that much more powerful and could truly change lives for the better. I am doing this project and am studying development because I want to help others reach this threshold of development that might make personal development attainable where it never was before.

This work is not without selfishness – I thrive on problem solving and on successfully helping others, and on discovering new places. But I only grow through helping others grow and believe this is how honest service works – an exchange, not a unidirectional service. Perhaps I also feel indebted to the powers that be for the luck I have had in my own life already and hope to repay that karmic debt by working with people and places to whom I can be of most service. I talk about passion and live with a lot of energy, often to a fault, and I feel indebted to the “world” for the life I’ve been blessed with  - Toj sounds pretty close to me…