Turning older this year hits differently.
When I look back to what has transpired the past year, the process of synthesizing my introspection was more complicated than I imagined.
In the past, there were simpler themes I could use to characterize the year — measuring my growth and progression over linear increments.
But these particular twelve months are not mere progressions, but rather, radical transitions. It’s daunting to imagine that this same time last year, I was neither in the same place nor in the same profession.
Here are three thoughts.
- On choosing and directing how to live
The older I get, the less certain I am of the path forward.
The benefit of being foolish and young is that I could run forward with little thought, trusting that I have time to make sense of haphazard choices. I can push forward and accumulate an uncategorized set of experiences, and believe that the simple act of living is enough.
I was, in the past, just a bit less cautious, a bit less self-aware, and so there is value in the journey towards self-discovery.
But now that I know myself slightly better, these past few years no longer feel like clear, direct pathways.
Simply experiencing life is no longer sufficient.
Rather, I find the need to direct my life deliberately— to see the quest for meaning and purpose not as a series of random choices accidently discovered and made sense of, but as a deliberate quest I proactively choose to embark on.
2. On knowing insecurities and inadequacies
Growing older seems to makes me more insecure.
It’s because I grapple with the tension between knowing my decisions and choices matter little in the grand scheme of the universe, but I continue nevertheless yearn for these choices to have meaning, at least to me.
It’s because I am haunted by the choices I did not take. It is in thinking that if had I chosen differently, it may have made the difference between being insignificant to being a faint whisper in the universe.
An increasing awareness of one’s own inadequacies and lost potential is a huge burden to bear.
3. On learning to live with burdens regardless
I learn nevertheless, to live with these burdens.
Because the gift that comes with a greater awareness of your inadequacies is a greater sense of openness to lean on other people.
We learn to accept that being broken and having missing pieces is a pre-requisite to fit with other people.
We learn to overcome whatever fear or emotional trauma we have. To live with a radical honestly that we are imperfect, vulnerable and can be defeated. Because we can only overcome our demons if we know and acknowledge that they exist.
So we let them exist.
And choose to live on regardless.
