I have been on a deep dive of personal exploration these last few months, facing up to myself and trying to understand what is really going on – why I have felt incapable of happiness lately. I have been stunned to discover how much of my life is still controlled by these feelings of “I should.” I’m genuinely surprised to learn that. I thought of myself as a free bird. It’s been quite the reality check to learn that I am, in fact, not free at all.
I am blown away by how hard it has been to connect to myself and what I truly want. I search and search and yet all I find are concepts of “I should want” or “I believe I should accomplish” cleverly disguised as the things that I want. I keep digging deeper, and I feel like I am getting closer. Even though I can’t quite see it yet, can’t name it, I can feel it.
I peel back my layers like an onion, and at the core is a beautiful, warm, glowing light – the sweetest thing. But it’s been banished. Buried far from sight and locked away for so long. Imagine? I didn’t even know it was there. Now I am shedding, and the light is poking through.
Michelle and I were talking the other day about what we strive for in life, and we were talking about professional success. It’s been a huge driving force for her throughout her life, but I can confidently say that I didn’t fall down that particular rabbit hole. It has never had too much sway over me.
What does move me, though, is the notion of making an impact during my time on this planet. As we spoke about what that meant, Michelle said, “You know, a lot of times the biggest impact we have is through raising children.”
That landed. I felt it internally, a heavy calm.
I started to wonder: maybe I’m still subscribed to society’s rulebook of making an impact. Maybe I’m subscribed to the concept that in order to make an impact, we must do things in vast quantities in order for it to count. That making an impact looks like publishing pieces of writing that change the lives of tens of thousands of readers, starting an NGO that makes an impact on a national scale, having businesses that change the lives of hundreds of employees.
But maybe we’ve got it all wrong, maybe the quality of the impact is far more important than the quantity. Maybe I could live my entire life doing nothing except being mindful and kind to every person I met, and maybe that would have the greatest impact of all.
I lie there, pondering this.
I imagine Emily as a little girl, wide eyed and just beginning her journey. I imagine Emily on her death bed, after a long, full life. She smiles lovingly at me, her wisdom showing through the crinkles around her eyes. She tells me:
“Darling, there will be no awards ceremony waiting for you here at the end.
There will be no important man in a robe inviting you onto a stage and handing you a prize for your outstanding accomplishments.
There will be no auditorium of thunderous applause and banners of recognition.
It will just be you, my love.
Just you, no one else.
You will look back on your life, that you cherish so fondly, and you will try to make sense of it.
And the only measure of success will be the one that you choose for yourself, sweetheart.”
Wait, what?
So I get to make up the rules? I get to decide how I live my life, how I spend my time, what I give importance to, what success looks like for me, how much I work or don’t work, what kind of work I do, who and how I love?
Sweet hallelujah.
I don’t know how it has taken me until age 35 to learn that I am actually the one in charge here, but I will take it.
