Wisdom starts early

I have the luxury of engaging in philosophical conversations with youth. Here is a list of some advice and observations made as a result of our discussions last month:

Advice

• "To fit in one must always belong to themselves."

• "You should never take anything for granted."

• "You should question everything, and always try to get as much information as possible."

• "Talk to strangers because they are really nice and funny."

• "Surround yourself with people you love and people who are better than you."

Observations

• "Humans are born very simple and become more complex."

• "People change based on their experiences so people become more different as time goes on."

• "Human nature is shaped by your experiences and people around you."

• "People are not simply just or unjust, they are mixed."

When is the last time you checked in with your inner teen-wisdom? Maybe you underestimated her and now in mid-life she has something to say worth listening to...again. Or it's time to throw everything into the wind and re-design. Regardless, there is just the place for you:

You Are Re-designers Now: Bring Mission to Midlife

https://www.mosaicscoaching.com/event-details/you-are-re-designers-now-bring-mission-to-midlife

Follow the link for more information. Hope to see you there.

Safe journeys, Allyson

...a difficulty of the human spirit.

"We are at last face to face with the fact that our difficulty is a difficulty of the human spirit."

Regardless of our generation, our identity, our contexts, transitions are constant and often necessary if not entirely welcome.  This we all share. 

Yet, transitions feel uniquely: Personal, Isolating, Confusing, Longer than necessary.  This too we share.

We say we want to be happier. What we really want is significance, to be at home with oneself and to like it. 

And so our difficulty is “a difficulty of the human spirit.” 

To find your way is best done in community.  Our next round table discussion “All Things Transitions” is focused on discernment—making use of what we already know to get a little closer to the significance we aspire for.

https://www.mosaicscoaching.com/event-details/all-things-transitions-1

Permission

“You have permission to stray, not to get lost” is the best translation I can offer. On the Chemin de Compostelle, signs with short messages were peppered along the way and I found this one to be of particular interest.  

While walking, my thoughts strayed. And on the trail I met a women recently retired who confessed she wasn't sure why she set out in the first place. Sometimes I almost strayed off the trail because I didn't pay enough attention to the blazes and another traveler added an extra hour of walking because she missed a blaze all together.

We stray. The potential benefits are real if unquantifiable. I found inspiration when I followed my thoughts wherever they took me. Perhaps the retired woman found an unexpected purpose for setting out. I became more observant to avoid loosing my path. And the lady who missed the blaze decided she needed to go home.

The potential to stray is the potential to wander and come back to ourselves with a little more information and perhaps with a greater capacity to avoid truly losing ourselves. Perhaps this is at the core of transitions. The crummy messy middle is a call to stray just enough so we don't get lost; so we don't simply repeat changes but rather become more powerful in our capacity to discern what comes next.