*THE ART OF BECOMING
How Life Shapes and Refines Us
There’s an old saying that life doesn’t come easy. The challenge isn’t that it is impossibly hard, but that it unfolds in layers. Each experience carves into us, much like a block of stone being shaped by a sculptor’s hand.
Over time, what first appears rough and unformed reveals a figure hidden beneath. Life is the sculptor, and we are both the stone and the emerging masterpiece.
When the World Shapes You
At times, it feels easier to let outside forces decide who we become. Family, culture, and circumstance take the chisel, and we are shaped by what others expect of us. This can provide direction, even security, but it also comes with a risk.
If we allow others to fully design the sculpture, we may wake one day to find the figure in the stone is not truly ours. For some, this works. For others, it leaves a quiet ache, a sense that something essential was never revealed.
Choosing to Sculpt Yourself
Taking over the carving is far less comfortable. In reality, it does not feel like artistry at first. It feels like trial after trial, mistake after mistake, as though life is singling you out. Yet in those moments, we begin to learn what it means to shape ourselves.
We move from being passive material to becoming the artist who directs the process. The blows do not stop, but we begin to understand how to use them, how to guide each strike toward the figure we want to uncover.
Growth requires discomfort. Think of a seed that splits open before it can root and rise. We cannot know if it feels pain, but we know that breaking is part of becoming. Our own journey is no different. From the earliest moment in the womb to the first breath outside, we are reshaped again and again through struggle and release.
The Ongoing Work of Becoming
We inherit DNA and family history, but the soul within us belongs only to us. The task is learning how to carry it through life, how to let it speak in our choices, our expressions, our creations.
Life will continue to chip and fracture. That much is certain. The real question is whether we allow those forces to carve without intention or whether we step forward as visionaries of our own form.
The masterpiece is not finished in a day, nor is it ever completely done. Each trial, each lesson, each small act of courage is another cut into the stone. Over time, the rough edges give way, and the figure that was always waiting within begins to stand clear.
JAH
