Lately, my life has been filled with comments like, "You're the happiest I've ever seen you," or "You just seem so relaxed," and "Something has changed about you." Especially for those that haven't seen me in a while, the change seems almost sudden, as if a light switch has been flipped in my life. But for those I see daily and weekly, the change has been much more of a transition over time, changes being made over months and years in nearly indistinguishable differences. But the scope of those changes collectively have been far from indistinguishable. It is apparent that I am a woman in transition.
There are many possible reason for such a transition. Maybe I'm just getting older, and maybe this is just what happens when a person gets older. Maybe the years of experiences start to add up to an equation that looks much different than the equation of youth. Maybe it's my influences. Marrying one of the calmest people on earth tends to have an effect on one's daily living after all. Maybe a new professional position has the possibility of altering one's entire life. Maybe.
I think the most significant change however, the one with the most impact on a personhood transition of such magnitude, is nothing more than a shift in perspective, a tip in the scale of priorities and how one views such priorities. And after a little contemplation yesterday, I think I am finally able to put words to it.
You see, much of our lives are spent striving. Measuring. Learning how to be the best, or in some cases, just managing to feel good enough. Children are taught that they can be anything they want to be, that they can have it all. But when we grow up and somehow achieve it all (or much of it, anyway), suddenly we look around and realize our own inadequacies. We have the big house but can't keep it clean. We have the good job, but someone else in the office is better at it than we are, and we're all after our boss's job anyway. We got into the grad program but can't live up to the expectations of the rest of the group. Heck, some days, even keeping my inbox or voicemail box clean is too much for me to bear. As a society, we've been taught that the only way to be happy in life is to be enough, to meet the benchmarks, to beat the competition.
And this kind of measuring, toiling, competing life is, in a word, exhausting. It is not uplifting, not energizing, not joy creating. Sure there are moments of exhilaration, successes on projects, promotions or raises, that give us a glimmer that all the measuring against some standard was somehow worth it. But in the end, the perspective drains and destroys us. Why? Because we never can be good enough in all of our areas of measurement all of the time. We just can't. But every missed mark, no matter how small, begins to pick away at us, eat away at our very souls until we are captured in a blanket of disappointments that we've knit around ourselves.
I've spent much of my life pursing the ruler, attempting to always be better than mark on the wall. I am naturally competitive and set my sights high on the professional ladder, the sports ladder, heck, any ladder I could find, I was looking at the top rungs only. It was the central focus of my being for much of my young adult life. And frankly, it's made me miserable. Uptight, combative, jealous, and sad.
There's nothing wrong with being competitive, per se. Nothing wrong with desiring successes, promotions, being good at something. The problem comes when it is our sole aim in life. When the blinders are up and that's all we see - measuring up. Because no matter how driven or focused or competitive we are, we are still, indeed, human. And that humanity limits our abilities to be enough. But do you know what it doesn't limit? Our capacity for joy.
Enter, the new perspective.
When I changed my central focus from being enough to just being, but being with joy, everything, and I do mean everything, looks different. When you can just be, for the sake of joy, you allow yourself the option to not always measure up perfectly, with the realization that that is completely okay. It gives you permission to not feel like a horrible person when the dishes don't get done. It gives you the allowance to enjoy what you are doing without your only focus being the prize at the end. It takes away the gnawing, nagging, pick-away-at-your-soul-ness that the measuring marks do to us because the measuring marks are secondary. Joy is primary.
Right now, life is filled with joy. My husband and I have a comfortable home that is sometimes messy and sometimes clean. We have a baby on the way this spring with not a single product picked out or purchased yet. My job is enjoyable and flexible, and I work with fantastic people to provide some amazing topics to some wonderful young adults. Some days, I screw up the grade book. Some days, I forget announcements I should have made. Some days, I'm late to meetings or miss deadlines. It's part of the journey. Sometimes I succeed on the journey. Sometimes I fail. Either way, I learn on that journey. Either way, the focus is not my ability to get the higher paycheck or the bigger programs (though I still work toward some of those goals). The focus is joy first. And things like serving others, being kind, working with instructors, and managing the details bring me joy regardless of their less than perfect execution.
Eckhart Tolle says, "Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be." This is a profound statement, especially when you learn to apply it. There's nothing forcing you to climb the measurement ladder if there's no joy in the journey toward the top. There's nothing telling you that you must measure up or that you absolutely cannot fail. And there's nothing stealing joy from your life except the way that you perceive life. Joy first. Everything else will follow.
