Let Go: No looking back
(3-minute read)
When I entered my sixties, the road ahead, which used to be crystal clear, seemed to disappear before my eyes. All I could do was look back. I was stuck.
A beach, where the road ends and the horizon is blocked. Another vehicle must be found - and its engine is in the mind.
My career had reached a crest during my fifties and I began a slow descent into boredom. It was a free-fall into the confusion of “is this all there is?” The road appeared to have not just ended, but evaporated, taking everyone with it.
Many of my friends, who had successful careers (or whose kids had left home), admitted that they had thought this way for a long time.
The thought process often goes like this:
“What you were excited about doesn’t really need you anymore.”
“It’s too easy, I’m bored.”
“Screw the new way. I’ve done good stuff already, and done it the old way. Why try anything new?”
It’s the voice of a mind clinging to the past.
Doubting why a relatively successful person should journey into something new can feel like hell. I know, because I lived there for more than 10 years.
“Why would I reinvent myself, how could I abandon what I’ve already achieved?” I found it a heck of a lot more comfortable to watch others work their tails off. “Entertain me” I offered those who were creating in the world. I thought: “Don’t you need an audience, anyway?” The critic in me loved having a new task.
It’s the infamous “tired of exploring” mindset that came with getting older. I’d heard this from my elders when I was growing up. I was supposed to stop, because my body was slowing down.
A couple sit on a perch overlooking Sinbad Canyon, Utah. I believed I was only observing them, but then realized that the observer is an explorer, too. And that’s me. Still.
If you have no skin in the game of getting older, these messages seem harmless. Maybe slowing down, easing up, relaxing, kicking back, all sound like rewards for a life well lived.
But they reflect a deadly state of mind that can smother the flame of living a good, long life. They nearly pulled my eyes from the road that was always there.
