The Circle of Life

As the great Sir Elton John once wrote, it’s the circle of life, and it moves us all. Through despair and hope. Through faith and love… was that before or after the baby lion watches his own father get killed by a, what was it? Stampede of hyenas? Or was it Jeremy Irons? I don’t remember. But it was not good. Disney movies are scary.

Anyway, I had a revelation this morning that I thought I’d share. There has been a lot of change in my life recently. Out with the old and in with the new. Connecting the past to the present. Finding peace in an otherwise crazy situation. Making plans. Breaking plans. Dealing with separation. Finding new hobbies, new friends. Rediscovering old relationships. Moving on. Caring more deeply than I thought I could. You know how it is, it’s just life. Anyway, my revelation.

The circle of life is somewhat deceiving, at least to me. I believe that we are all connected and I believe in action/reaction or cause/effect theories, but there is a slight difference in how I choose to live my life. The circle of life suggests a sort of fatality, a predetermined destiny. Once you find your place in this world, you do your thing and that’s that. The rest will fall into place around you, in the “circle.” You’re kind of moved along in the rotation.

Not me. I make my own destiny. My life is more of an octagon or a trapezoid even, with a huge diagonal line down the center, just in case I want to go from Point D to Point A and I don’t have a lot of time. I can eat tofu if I want to (not likely, but just making a point). I can choose not to have children and that could be ok. I can cancel all my plans and risk my job if that meant taking care of someone I love. I can be a really good person… and yet not believe in a particular religion. I can order an extra greasy burger and fries, with a diet coke on the side. I can take off for the weekend with no real agenda. Or I can carefully plan a single evening. I can paint a wall in my bedroom fluorescent green if I wanted to… not that I would of course.

The point? I think I finally realized, in a really conscious way, that life is not about falling into “the circle.” It’s about enjoying whatever shape you make it out to be. And it was at that exact moment when I decided to become a geometry teacher.