On Being Ready
As I make my way through the day, I often find myself noticing other people. What they are wearing, conversations, shopping bags, etc...but I also notice things like wedding rings, children and if they have a significant other. These are lifecycle events that happen to people when they happen.
Usually my next thought is, 'hmm, how did they know?' 'How did they know what,' you ask?
How did they know they were ready? Or, were they ready?
So many things in our life have deadlines. Graduation season is always in May/June, time guides us through days to let us know when it's time to wake up and time to sleep, weekends come and go. 18 is the deadline for being a kid, 21 is the entry way to being an alchohol consuming adult, 13 is when you are considered an adult in the Jewish religion.
These events are all things we look forward to with sometimes equal trepidation and excitement, but they are all ways of telling us that we are ready for something new and big in our individual world.
And yet, as we get older, and those adolescent deadlines fade away and the decades of milestone birthdays loom in the distance, I have to wonder what it's like to be ready for the less tangible, most important passageways of all...the lifecycle events of finding a partner, getting married, narrowing a career focus and having kids.
I'm sure all the people in my path that I've seen who've entered these institutions have felt or decided they were ready for them. But wouldn't it just be nice if we got a memo to help us along in making those big decisions? Sometimes I want to go up to those people in the grocery store and say something like, "I love your engagement ring. I didn't get that memo. Could you tell me where to register? I want in on the secret."
That would be cool. Would people be more or less confident about these important choices or maybe make more educated decisions about such events? Probably. And it would be awesome to get a fax at work that read in big, 48 point letters, 'YOU ARE READY.' You co-workers might think you have direct lineage to G-d and would that be so bad?
But alas, my right brain imagination lacks reality for the moment.
However, I do know one thing...In terms of knowing when you are ready....I think we can 'just know' when we listen to our voice and if we work on that voice, it just might work for us. And as for the memo, well, since it's usually an external document anyway...that's what we have friends for....to listen, offer feedback and click YES when they agree that we are ready for new transitions.
As I make my way through the day, I often find myself noticing other people. What they are wearing, conversations, shopping bags, etc...but I also notice things like wedding rings, children and if they have a significant other. These are lifecycle events that happen to people when they happen.
Usually my next thought is, 'hmm, how did they know?' 'How did they know what,' you ask?
How did they know they were ready? Or, were they ready?
So many things in our life have deadlines. Graduation season is always in May/June, time guides us through days to let us know when it's time to wake up and time to sleep, weekends come and go. 18 is the deadline for being a kid, 21 is the entry way to being an alchohol consuming adult, 13 is when you are considered an adult in the Jewish religion.
These events are all things we look forward to with sometimes equal trepidation and excitement, but they are all ways of telling us that we are ready for something new and big in our individual world.
And yet, as we get older, and those adolescent deadlines fade away and the decades of milestone birthdays loom in the distance, I have to wonder what it's like to be ready for the less tangible, most important passageways of all...the lifecycle events of finding a partner, getting married, narrowing a career focus and having kids.
I'm sure all the people in my path that I've seen who've entered these institutions have felt or decided they were ready for them. But wouldn't it just be nice if we got a memo to help us along in making those big decisions? Sometimes I want to go up to those people in the grocery store and say something like, "I love your engagement ring. I didn't get that memo. Could you tell me where to register? I want in on the secret."
That would be cool. Would people be more or less confident about these important choices or maybe make more educated decisions about such events? Probably. And it would be awesome to get a fax at work that read in big, 48 point letters, 'YOU ARE READY.' You co-workers might think you have direct lineage to G-d and would that be so bad?
But alas, my right brain imagination lacks reality for the moment.
However, I do know one thing...In terms of knowing when you are ready....I think we can 'just know' when we listen to our voice and if we work on that voice, it just might work for us. And as for the memo, well, since it's usually an external document anyway...that's what we have friends for....to listen, offer feedback and click YES when they agree that we are ready for new transitions.
posted by ImperfectArtist at 11:20 AM
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