We all need help and have benefited from teachers in all shapes and forms to get to where we are. They often appear without us even seeking them out, seeming to appear by the unconscious summoning of our needs. But the lesson we learn from many of these guides is not in what they offer but in how we respond. Although their intentions may be genuine, their advice is shaped from their experience and beliefs and may not apply. If we feel they are misguided or dissembling, we can just forget the unsolicited advice as easily as it was requested.
Supposedly we don’t know what’s missing until it’s gone, but a lot of times we let go of someone or something and don’t realize we’re lacking anything at all. We fill up the recently-vacated space with new people and activities and truly believe all is well, and maybe it is…for a while. But over time, a general malaise and lethargy develops. We don’t quite know what’s wrong, but something is most-definitely off. We switch up our routines, doing more of this and less of that. Unfortunately nothing seems to work. But then by fate, chance, or desperation, we experience what or who we let go and know…this has been missing.
Finding yourself, coming of age, becoming are all descriptions of our search for identity. The last one is probably the best because it’s fluid and the most open-ended. The other two imply there’s a destination to the journey. While there are plateaus along the way where we feel a total sense of self, these are just moments and soon pass. Identity is neither found nor fabricated. It emerges from within when we have the courage to let go of who we think we are and experience the opportunities presented to us, even if that means we become the opposite.
We view the things that stand between us and our goals as opponents. Fighting against them, we believe if only they weren’t there or if we can just find a way past them, an unencumbered path to our dreams awaits. But the challenges that arise along the way are as connected to our aspiration as we are. Hurdle or hindrance, each impediment offers an opportunity to slow down and take inventory of ourselves and the world we live in. We just have to resist our competitive instinct to speed through obstacles and vanquish our enemies and appreciate what they are teaching us about our individual and collective journeys and the truth and beauty they open up to us.
How old are you? It’s one of the first questions we’re all asked and learn to answer. First with our fingers then with our adorable, sputtering speech. But as the days and years mount, it’s also one we avoid — both asking and answering. It’s a reminder of our inevitable mortality — that we are blessed with only so much time. But maybe our waning focus on age is more because we realize it really doesn’t matter. The number of years we amass is merely a counting exercise. Wisdom is the ultimate goal. That comes from living our lives to the fullest.
We all strive to work smarter and not just harder. Unfortunately it’s not always clear how to do that because we don’t know what we don’t know. But we figure out pretty quickly that quality is more important than quantity, so to work smarter, we need to improve the quality of what we’re doing. The easiest way to do that is to reduce or eliminate what we shouldn’t be doing. Whether we like to admit it or not, we know exactly what that is. We just have to have the awareness and discipline to resist the temptation and do it.
