We are so afraid of hitting that wall where our best-laid plans come to halt.
I hit such a wall into my thirties. After three decades of slogging through academics, passing through elite colleges and landing the cushiest jobs, I no longer related with what I did for a living. I knew I could no longer go forward. But there was no sideways for me, for this career was all I had skilled myself up for. And surely – after coming so far – I could not go all the way back! Right?
Opportunity cost can be an ugly term when we apply it to our lives. When we measure our happiness and dawning sense of purpose against the years put into something that no longer works. The hard-earned degrees no longer relevant, and even worse, the monetary loss when we are no longer compounding on all that investment of our years. But my restlessness was thankfully so strong that I could no longer continue, and so I did go all the way back. Climbed back into the crucible, to melt and reforge myself.
The thing I learnt from this little death was that life plans can change. We can grow past our earlier selves. The world we step into expands and throws us possibilities we never knew existed when we set our plans. Life-altering events happen that put into question all our previous beliefs. Or we just grow tired of being who we are one day.
The wall we hit inside is because our plan no longer leads towards the new vague direction life is showing us.
Of course, I was afraid when I had to begin all over again. And violently ashamed. These were days before the Great Resignation, and the background I came from there was no concept of passion – only hobbies. I dropped out of the radar for a few years. Mumbling some made-up excuse when cornered with the inevitable ‘So what are you doing these day?’. Feeling an utter failure before those who had once looked at me as an example.
In the initial years, I thought my way out of this fear and shame would be quickly piling up new achievements. But here I was falling into the old trap of my earlier life: believing that my life’s success is measured by some outward-directed metric rather than the emerging sense of purpose and peace I was striving towards.
If you can understand these three things, you will be better equipped than I was to deal with this great fear at the start:
- The key to living is what makes you feel alive. Sometimes you are done with the past and some new journey is beckoning within you.
- And hence the wall is nothing more than your life telling you to reconsider and take a turn.
- Something will happen, no matter which path you take. Emergence lies at the very heart of life, i.e., things will grow from where they are. And when you choose to follow the new direction life is taking you towards, what will emerge will be more organic to you. More suited to who you are becoming now and where your purpose and peace lie.
