The 3 Most Important Lessons I Learned From Prison
A few days ago I was confronted by a person that was angry and bothered by their own life, and decided to hit me with the term “Khareej hu’buse”, Lebanese for ex-con.
As any human would, I got somewhat offended but decided to ignore them. At first I thought it was because they had limited me to the label of an ex-convict, but I refused to examine the feeling so superficially.
While meditating on the idea of how I felt, my mind took me on a journey from the first picture (taken inside Roumieh in 2013) to the second picture (taken a month ago in 2021), revisiting memories that reside in-between both.
There is wisdom buried in all of us, freed only when you revisit your past to remember the lessons you sometimes forget.
My time in prison taught me patience, but my time after my release pushed me to forget how serene patience felt. The world we live in is a world of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds…let go of the hour glass, it only drowns you. Use the measure of time as a tool to manage your will, not a shackle that enslaves you to the will of society.
My time in prison taught me to be my best friend, but my time after my release pushed me to become my worst enemy. In prison my sanctuary was my own mind, it soothed me, it allowed me to venture outside the tall, concrete walls, to a more beautiful place where I could be all I wanted to be. At many times the world we live in teaches us to judge ourselves against an abstract idea of perfection; flooding our minds with limiting beliefs. Heavy as the heavens on the shoulders of Atlas, this burden is cast on us not by Greek gods, but by our own fear of loving ourselves.
My time in prison taught me to respect the story of each & every person that crossed my path, but my time after my release pushed me to close my ears and eyes to those around me, using the ugliness of the world as justification. At many times the world we live in teaches us to focus on the negatives; it overwhelmingly drowns out the light & suffocates the ability to experience the world for what it is, and not what you wish for it to be. The stories of those around you are books on shelves, with chapters that hold lessons you alone can decide to learn from.
Don’t forget to breathe
