I hope that sounds familiar to some as the juvenile planning or the chronically holding plan B contract. I had a few with early adolescent friends. If I am not married by, then we will get married. If I haven’t done whatever I would want to do, then you this second lesser option is fine. When we make careless bargains with life – it is as if we challenge ourselves easily because we know that our hopes overshoot our realities.
The realities always shine through and sometimes they may catch us suddenly around about the time all the guiding structures telling us what to do stop talking to us. We exit the education system, who have guided us year to year meticulously, even if just in the logistics of warm bodies and coins. We have been directed by church, parent, sibling, teacher, law, and a propagandized consumption culture. Suddenly the scaffolds herding us forward abruptly ends for some. (read with some humor as the next few sections are sprinkled richly with ironic observation).
IF you fail to verge off into family rearing – you miss a near guarantee of life being further guided. This eighteen year run, however, will be by your fear of being seen as a bad parent . . . by other bad parents. Immediately following almost two decade sacrifice you will deeply unbothered or too tired to come to your defense of being called a bad parent by all the surviving beneficiaries of your bad parenting. Who ironically are deep in the indignant act of carrying out and perpetuating a pendular swing of bad parenting towards an opposite extreme ideology of yours. An act of spite and revenge largely enacted outside of your view and at the expense of their own children who pick up the battle of generations . . . . for at minimum another 18 years times however long fertility genetically transmits. You are so embroiled in family conflict (sprinkled richly with ironic sarcasm) for at minimum 18 years –
IF you happen to go career route you can dedicate, disappear, or divide yourself to various levels of outcome. Near none of which were what you were planning. Some detecting the injustice of having to work, sweat, and toil some become indignant. Having had no say about coming into this world do a fairly decent job at decrying the unfairness of it while successfully outmaneuvering the first lesson given to the first man. Bittnerness, resentment, envy take over structuring the pathway here and they are strict guides and lead their herd at a steep decline – or silently grumbling and compliant remain to chance. Where at best we encounter guidance and more opportunity to hand our autonomy (and we sneakingly thing we are also handing off the responsibility) to a charismatic disruptor, prophet, schemer, mission driver, marketer, lover, pet project, corporate leader or saint – who appears competent and confident but is equally as stunned at being herded forward out of his womb and to his cross as you.
That got dark quick – and covered a fair amount of polarizing territory?
Cheer, my sojourner friend! Wisdom worries only the wise. Hope germinates amount the weary and for those who somewhere along this path sense their compulsory current. Dected, they pause. Fog lifts. Youthful distractions bore. Doerships shrink. Beyond our ability exhaustion inspires us to pull hesitantly at advancing life’s current. Startling reality gives us a glimpse upon how far we are from where we had once wanted to be.
If any part of this seems familiar then consider looking at this with me from a less light point of view.
Time limits the view of what remains possible to you. I should. instead say Space – time is not real. It has no substance. It is a construct fueling our sense of scarcity, demand expectation obligation, comparative measurement, and I can reserve this tangent for another space. Where it can be occupied in its full.
As we age we see that fewer things remain possible. In our young childhood the idea that we could become almost anything we set our mind to – was relatively true. If we set upon that pathway and were dedicated to it, supported in it by our parents, and if circumstances otherwise allowed it – we likely would achieve it.
Unfortunately, as you have just read and encountered our disposition towards work and professional becoming is in large part discovered through trial and error. We don’t know what we don’t know.
I didn’t know that I would not like being a restaurant owner until I actually was faced with the reality of being a restaurant owner. I imagine the changes in your own path have been as a result of discovery. You have decided what to not do. There remains still a great deal that you can decide to do. Albeit, now limited.
The question you face is now what do I do?
Reflect on what you can learn from your past mistakes. You’ve made some choices that have missed the mark and you’ve encountered some setbacks along the way. Take those “failures” and make lessons out of them, so that you don’t continue to make the same mistakes. If you learned that your attention and interest in an industry or venture wanes quickly – averages lets say 3 months – then learn the trend, your propensity, and work with it. You would, in this case, benefit from not making any formal decisions until you could maintain an interest for longer than 3 months. Whatever the lesson you learn out of reflection, apply it.
Disengage from negative self-talk. Being self aware is good. It helps to have an accurate sense of self estimation. Being self-conscious isn’t serving you – nor will it likely ever. The self-criticism doesn’t lead to constructive action. It only defines, describes, and reinforces the gap that you see between present you and the future self that you are struggling to articulate. It is a negative expenditure of energy that is going to result in either a list of prohibitions that you will continually battle or a quieter inhibitions that will rob you of the visibility and measured risk taking that is required during this time. Instead focus on something else.
Allowance. Focus your thought life on what you can allow rather than what can not. Introduction of new experiences, people, interests, and places will usher in fresh opportunities. Engage in the spirit of curiosity, not knowing, and adopt an allowant attitude. Ultimately, if you need to change your mind, change it. There is nothing wrong with a little contradiction or self-redirection. You can wake up one morning with an opinion, learn something new, and go to bed that night with an entirely different opinion. You don’t need to know. You don’t need to show up perfect, just show up. You don’t even need to fear the failure.
