Wake Up and Choose Again

Have you ever had the sudden revelation that you can change your mind and choose something different? Like someone throwing the lights on when you’re dead asleep, it’s startling: “What? Oh yeah! I don’t have to keep doing this if I don’t want to…”

I forget all the time that I can choose again. It’s the source of a lot of unhappiness, this forgetting.

Who among us hasn’t overstayed a job, marriage or friendship we knew was no longer serving us because damnit – we’re committed!

You’ve worked successfully as a teacher for 10 years, you can’t just quit to chase your dream of becoming a baker now (madness!!). It’s selfish, after 10+ years of marriage to bail – while the kids are still young, no less – when your partner isn’t even a bad person. You’re just clear he hasn’t been the person since just after you tied the knot…That friend from high school you realize you have almost nothing in common with and maybe don’t even like that much, but you stay connected because “it’s been so long”…?

No one is going to call YOU a quitter! No commitment issues here!

Fear issues, yes. Commitment, not-so-much.

We become slaves to time that has PASSED - and the only wholly true thing about the past is that it is not here. Nevertheless, we stay the present course long after we know it’s not the right one often only because we’ve already invested so much time. God forbid we “waste time!” That’s the devil’s work, right there. The truth is that there is no awards ceremony for “sticking it out” and endurance is NOT its own reward.  Neither is martyrdom, contrary to the marketing efforts of organized religion. We also stay too long because we don’t want to disappoint people - we think they are as invested in our choices as we are.

They aren’t. Mostly, people care about themselves, and in the end, no one gives a rat's ass how long you stayed in a relationship or a job. Even if they do, they eventually get over it (because what are the choices?).  Never mind that no time invested in yourself is ever “wasted.” In fact, sometimes the most important time is spent learning that no, this is not what you want after all…

How would your decisions change if you cared less about the perception of you, and more about the heart of you?

We forget it's OK to change our minds. We forget we have power. We choose the "devil we know," live in fear of unknown outcomes and pretend all the while we are in charge, convincing ourselves this is what we really want so we can avoid making inevitably harder choices.

Being a renegade is not easy work! To choose again is radical. It’s just not something one does - though it is something others admire deeply. And envy. The courage to just quit being a lawyer to become a stand-up comedienne? WHAAT?? Seeing someone brave (and crazy) enough to “give it all up” and follow their heart is astonishing. And hugely inspiring.

The idea of “one and done” is culturally ingrained and pervasive.  We are encouraged to marry one person, write one bucket list, choose one job and hang in there endlessly, even unhappily, because to do anything else is to contribute to the disintegration of the very fabric of society.  “People these days just give up too easily....”

Maybe some do. None that I know.

"Promiscuous" implies that I'm not choosy. In fact, I'm very choosy. I just happen to make a lot of choices - Jacki Weaver

Never mind these might all be choices you made when you were 20 or 25. You know: when you were an almost entirely different person than you are now! No wise person wants to be at 50 who they were at 16 or 21 or 30.  If you’re remotely self aware you’ll likely recoil from the very idea. We want the energy, the strength, the ability to lose 5lbs in a week by “cutting back a little,” sure - but few of us would actually trade being that person again. As humans we persistently and relentlessly grow and evolve, even as we resist it. The only constant is change, and all that.

So why cleave heroically to choices we made 10, 20 or even 30 years earlier? Why think that decisions we made when we were essentially someone else should still necessarily work for us?

Be willing to surrender who you are for who you could become - unknown

Don’t get me wrong, lots of people DO get it right: They choose an amazing partner or a career that speaks to their natural gifts right out of the gate. And absolutely there is unique value in the long-game: understanding, appreciation, learning and love all deepen in ways they can’t otherwise without the benefit of time. But many of us convince ourselves of the inherent value in decisions that have basically expired because we fear “throwing it all away.” The milk tastes a little funky, but not so bad we’ll toss it. Yet. It’s not like it’s making us sick. Yet.

Endings are hard and we don’t like them – there’s that too. They’re fraught with conflicted emotions and there’s often shrapnel, even when we’re thoughtful and take pains to protect others. We forget we can make another choice on the one hand, but our biological need for self preservation means we’re almost hardwired to forget on the other: fundamentally, change is terrifying. The dark unknown. And few things say “change” like “the end.” 

Endings speak to secret fears about being a failure, of starting again from scratch, of being a disappointment.  Plus, unless it’s a race, endings often just don’t look good, do they?

Endings can be SO EMBARRASSING! Shame much? Brene Brown says that “shame erodes our courage,” and anyone who’s wrestled with choosing again knows it.  Shame is “the fear that we’re not good enough…it corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”

Except by staying where we are, we choose a life of safety, over one of authenticity.

What if we valued our own, deep needs as much as we valued other peoples? We forget that sometimes we need to love ourselves more than – or at least as much as - we love everybody else, and then to make choices from this powerful place. 

One advantage of middle age (and beyond) is that it’s easier to let people down: by now you’ve been a big disappointment to a whole bunch of people already. Plus you have experience that everyone survives it. Not to mention you tend to care less about pleasing many people at all.

You grow and change; your wants and needs grow and change too. Choosing again is a muscle: exercise it. Practice. In the end, few of us think “Yeah, all those safe choices… those were the best.” Remember that you are the boss of you, and never mind disappointing everyone else. Don’t leave having disappointed yourself.

Remembering I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. - Steve Jobs