PEBBLE
I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.
~Tracee Ellis Ross, shared by Marsha in New Jersey
BOULDER
Everyday is not an opportunity to improve yourself. Some days are just there for you to accept yourself and look at the clouds. This too is growth. This too is rising. Just existing is enough on some days. The flowers do it everyday and make the world more beautiful just by being here. So do you.
-Nikita Gill, shared by Sara in Madison, WI
PONDER
If you know me, you know I’m something of the growth junkie. I loves me some growth! Improving how I do thiings, learning how to do new stuff, figuring out how I’m gonna grow next….I get fired up just writing about it!
Over the last several months I’ve been engaging in some deep conversations with a few close friends who, like myself, are inching toward our retirement years. Even though there’s a decade or so before I’ll be firmly in the “post-career” chapters of life, it’s been useful to ponder what kind of person I want to be in my 60s, 70s, and 80s, and to wonder what I can be doing now to increase the likelihood that I’ll be more like that person.
The answers that have emerged from this process are centered around both the pace of my life and the focus. I’m imagining less “go, go, go” and more “slow, slow, slow.” A steadily increasing focus on Here Now mindfulness and a further distancing from a mindless, “I need to be doing something, anything productive so I can label this day a success.”
I don’t know if you spotted the irony yet, but I’m grinning wide as it moves into my conscious awareness that I’ve been trying to grow into someone who is less focused on growth…to move in the direction of less movement. D’oh! What’s a growth-oriented fella to do?
I’m still working through all of this, but I think it’s helpful that I’m able to sit here and smile at the conundrum and skip over the judgment stuff that used to come up more quickly and more steadily. My friend Pidge taught me about polarities and the benefits of shifting away from either/or thinking (i.e. forcing myself to choose between being super growth-oriented OR giving that up completely to become solely focused on present-moment being) and instead shifting toward a dance of both/and thinking (playing around with the possibility of leaning into more HERE NOW moments while still allowing for HERE AND THERE growth)
I don’t have all the answers of course. Guess what: I don’t need to! For now I’m hoping that an increasing number of my days will include lots of time for stillness while others will still be all about the growthness. And a few days might even be (wait for it)….a nice little mix of both. How about that?
Peace,
Paul
