Follow (growing) up

I always struggle the day after what I’ll call a “pretty good post”.  I have strung them back to back and even back to back to back, but that’s the exception and not the rule. I have always said that the best thing to do is just to start. So that’s what I am doing.

Along the way, this blog has been filled with anecdotal stories from my childhood, some from high school, not much from college, very little from the years 95-00. It makes me wonder about each of those times in chunks for some reason.

I’ve always said that I thought there was going to be another “growing up”. We change so much. Every year from 0-6 is a colossal change, hell maybe from 0-17 or so. Physically of course, but more importantly mentally. Our view of the world, of ourselves, becoming who we are. For a decade we couldn’t wait to be into double digits, then our teens. MIlestones we created and others propagated. Rushing to the next.

When I was in college, I was waiting for the next one. The next big jump. I felt I had figured out a lot of stuff, but wanted another “grow up” finish line to cross where the rest of the answers are covered by the teacher. An easy explanation on how to be an adult and to finish that growing up process. Maybe when I graduated from college they’'d stuff the answers in my diploma or something.

It never came.

No one met me after the ceremony with the “next steps”. Every step was to be the next one, and I am still walking.

That’s the good news though, right? I am still walking. Learning, deciding, choosing, walking, speeding up, slowing down, hitting walls. All of it. The alternative is for it to all be over. I’m so far from that.

Yesterday I asked, “What will the next 30 years look like for me?” I asked but didn’t answer, only committed to keep searching.

This morning I am looking back to 1990. The previous 30. Not with (m)any regrets. That’s a fools game. I can no more go back and be a doctor than fly to the moon. No, I am looking back through a zoomed out lens. At the world, at where it was, compared to where it is now. Not just specific to March, 28, 2020 but more from what has advanced over that time period and what has remained the same. The internet wasn’t a thing, and now I can FaceTime (though god I hate it). I still have the same Gibson Les Paul and it still sounds the same as then. So some things going forward will change, and some will remain the same.

I also mentioned yesterday that I didn’t want things to go back to the way they have been for the past two years. What I think I meant specifically was that now that the world has come to a stop, I am committed to NOT going back to the way things were. Chasing. Stress. Unhappy. If that means I lose more in the short term, so be it. I’m not going back.

Some would argue that I already just “do whatever I want.” They wouldn’t be wrong. I will of course do whatever it takes to provide, but I think I am also committed to not doing a whole lot of what I don’t want from a different mindset.

Over time, I was doing a lot of things I thought I wanted to do, but had lost my way as to why I was even doing them some days. Defining “why” has been something I have been a huge promoter of over the last 7-8 years. Defining it, creating a filter for everything I do to run through. It was simple “Does doing “x” make people healthier and better?” If yes, I did it. If no, I didn’t. I’m not saying that isn’t still what I’m motivated by, but I had overdone things so much (read: did it all) that I was doing none of it well and all I did was question if I even cared about it anymore.

I think I still do, but I’m not rushing back to it.

One of my friends and business partners would ask me often “why isn’t just this enough?” I never had nor do I have the answer to that. I still don’t know if I will. But since all of my “this” is in limbo, it’s as good a time as ever ro dig in and to see what’s enough.

I encourage you to dig in with me. To decide if rushing back to where we were a mere 2 weeks ago is better or worse?

To ask if there is a way forward that is more simple, yet more fulfilling?

To maybe, finally get to that next “growing up” milestone.

I hope to see you there with me.

#hugsandhi5s