Do you ever look at your life and think, "This looks like a puzzle put together haphazardly by a three year old child." Hi, my name is Georgia Delaney Hawthorne and I am Type A. It is your turn to respond with "Hi, Georgia Delaney Hawthorne". Thanks. But really. There are people who were already ruling countries at this age, making fortunes, writing books, saving lives. My own mother had two children at my age! What am I doing? Giving people tours at a museum. They probably don't even listen to half the things I say. What else do I do? Make aprons, eat sweets when I get stressed, and attempt to keep flowers alive. What a life.
This is supposed to happen to 45 year old men who realize they've whiled away the hours at the office while they're precious cherubs have tuned into young adults and moved off into the great, wide world. This is not supposed to happen to carefree, happy-go-lucky 23 year olds who have just moved to the city and have an artsy job and geraniums in their window boxes!
In order to make myself feel better, I could think about the number of people who were ruling nations and discovering far off lands at my age compared to the rest of the population. Am I content to be in the vast majority of unremarkables? What do I want to accomplish? Begin with the end in mind, and all that. Do I endeavor to live every day as a shooting star, burning with bright, hot intensity? Will that make me extraordinary? What brand of extraordinary do I want to be? Do I take life as it comes, or seize the darn day and show it who's boss?
This trouble started at lunch with Uncle Steve on Tuesday. My Uncle Steve is my dad's younger brother, and he is a mildly successful businessman. By mildly successful, I mean that he's not a big shot in the world of business, but he's good at what he does. I would tell you what that is, but his job happens to be one of those that no one really understands. He was in the city on Tuesday doing whatever he does and asked if I wanted to go to lunch. I said yes of course, so we lunched. At first I was inspired. He asked me questions about how the transition to city living was going, how the job was, all that. Before you knew it, he went from concrete to abstract and started talking about life goals and saving for retirement and I don't know what. When he dropped me back off at work, I could hardly remember my spiel, I was so concerned about 401ks and Roth IRAs and whether my life goals were properly defined.
As you can tell, I'm still consternated, thoroughly consternated. I used to think life coaches were for the 45 year old men in paragraph two. Now I'm not so sure. I need a plan for grappling with this leviathan. People talk about life as being an uphill battle or a journey. Well, by golly, you don't just show up for an uphill battle or start off on a journey. There's swords to be sharpened and provisions to be packed and travel journals to be bought. Step 1: Figure out what step one should be.
Yours,
George
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