More, presumably being more to life, more to relationships and more to work.
I’ve pondered his thought more than a few times over the years, wondering if “more” is out there, and if I have yet to reach some undefined higher level of accomplishment, happiness or fulfillment beyond my current one. And if there is, what will it take for me to reach it.
Now on the cusp of 50, and balancing part-time work with a satisfying coaching practice, I travel when I can, and split my time between three addresses and the three communities that sustain me. Yet fulfillment, as I imagine it, seems as elusive as a pot of gold at rainbow’s end. This time around, though, I wonder not so much if there is more, but what will really, and I mean REALLY give me the sense that I am reaching my potential as I look ahead to what is sometimes called the third age.
The gifts of aging
Fifty is an interesting marker. There’s a lot to look back on: wild successes and blistering failures in work, love and everything we have invested our hearts and energy into. Older, if not entirely wiser, we have ample evidence of our strengths and talents, alongside a heightened awareness of the lessons we have yet to learn and the shortened time in which to learn them.
Our bodies are changing as well as our temperaments: we need a little more rest, and in our contemplative moments, greater vulnerability emerges as we come into closer and more frequent contact with our own limits, be they mental, physical or emotional.
For those of us with unfulfilled dreams (including me), or who have invested in careers that no longer give us much other than a paycheque and a comforting routine, a dawning realization that things will not change unless we actively change them starts to take hold.
And with that comes anxiety – partly about the difficult choices that come with giving up the known – but also about who we are if we free ourselves from the security, real or imagined, in which we’ve tethered our lives.
Joseph Campbell, the America mythologist, sums up what the quest becomes as we awaken to what is missing from our lives: “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.” As we age and start to see that the party will end one day, this desire for aliveness intensifies.
I felt that hunger acutely this past weekend at a coaching conference in Santa Monica, LA. Here, in a room of a hundred exceptional coaches, the prevailing theme was “pushing at our edge” as coaches, for when a coach strives continually to grow beyond his or her own limitations, he or she is far more likely to ignite the creative and professional aspirations in our clients.
Yet all steps on the journey of growth risk pain and fear, and are accompanied by a truckload of ‘what-ifs’ and the tired tropes of ‘who am I?’ and ‘why is this so hard?’ Still, I had a head-rattling insight as I struggled to get beyond these limiting and self-defeating thoughts, and it is this:
The goal is not to reach my potential.
Potential is elusive and shifting, and assumes there is only one end state for me. Rather the real work is to push against my rationales and justifications for staying small in the face of what I long to do and who I might become along the way. It is the choice I always have open to me, moment by moment, to say yes when it’s more comfortable to say no, or say no when it’s more comfortable to say yes.
This weekend, the thunderbolt moment was understanding my dreams are like Ithaca in Constantine Cavafy’s poem: they exist not so much so that I reach them or discover my potential - or find wealth, health and happiness.
They exist most of all to start and keep me on a splendid journey, without which I would have not set out.
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Thank you for reading this post. If you liked it, I invite you to check out my other posts on LinkedIn:
Make yourself unstoppable with these seven practices
Follow my passion? What if I don't have one?Five lessons I learned from a week-long yoga retreat
lisa Schmidt is a leadership and career coach focused on helping you explore and thrive in a new role, career, calling and/or lifestyle - from first job to promotion, from job loss to career realignment, and on through to retirement.
If you are unhappy at work, tolerating an unsatisfying professional life, reeling from a recent lay-off, or longing to find and follow a passion, I am here to help you tap into your strengths, face your fears and get back in touch with what you long to do. Connect with me at lisaschmidt@live.ca or on twitter at @lisaS_Coach
