Brene Brown captures this beautifully in the preface of The Gifts of Imperfection, "People may call what happens at midlife a "crisis," but it's not. It's an unraveling--a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you're 'supposed' to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are."
Ahh. I can't express the immense relief I feel in reading this. As much as I admire the likes of Carly Fiorina and Sheryl Sandberg, I don't think I'm destined to be a chief executive, or even a vice president, in this lifetime. As much as I'd like to think I have to offer, this is not my debt to society. Every time I've had an opportunity to advance, I've taken a step back instead. Why?
Life is about choices and trade offs. Is there a single universal divine will for each life? Roughly, yes. Bernard Shaw wrote, "Where is the life I have lost in living?" Years ago I realized what he meant. There's a pursuit of some lifestyle that seems to rob us of the life we are destined to live. Lose the striving for the lifestyle and, voila, you have a full, happy, wholehearted life.
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