New
Leaves
“Times
of transition are strenuous, but I love them. They are an opportunity
to purge, rethink priorities, and be intentional about new habits. We
can make our new normal any way we want.”
Kristin
Armstrong
Transitions
are difficult. We humans are prone to imagine that at some future
date, our lives will settle down. They'll become calm and routine. We
will know without asking what comes next and will carry on with
certainty and confidence. It's magical thinking, of course. Life
today is never routine. There are too many working parts. If not our
jobs, then our families; if not our families, then our economy; if
not our economy, then the weather—other people, other cultures,
other languages—businesses are invented and die within a
generation. Everything is in movement.
Two
generations ago, life was different; it was slower, and more
predictable. Short of a bank collapse or a natural disaster, nothing
much changed from one day to the next. People took a job when they
were young and retired from that job when they were old. They lived
where they grew up, or at least within a hundred miles. They belonged
to the same community their parents had, and went to the same
religious establishment. Today, we're flung all over the globe, and
are constantly transitioning.
While
this constant flux is unsettling, especially when we move past
mid-life, there are some boons. One is that we have opportunities to
reinvent ourselves. We can entertain myriad possibilities; we can
discover all our own moving parts. The average young person today
will have at least five different career paths during their lifetime.
Gone are the days of the company man. Now it's the “what's next”
man.
Transitioning
is the new normal—and I'm not talking about gender change, though
that is another possibility that didn't exist even a generation ago.
Constant change is today's reality. The positive side of it is that
we have the ability to choose how we will live, what we will be, what we will
do, year to year and sometimes even hour to hour. What new leaf will
you turn over today?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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