New Life's Resolution

I have a tendency to read magazines back to front. I don’t know why; it doesn’t make any sense. It could be that I simply have a more dextrous left thumb (though I’m right-handed) and flipping through pages with ease is a priority for my brain(?) But I’ll start reading near the end or from the middle of an article and try to understand what’s happening. If it looks interesting, I’ll flip to the beginning and read like a normal human but if not, I’ll keep perusing, flipping right to left, back to front.

So it happened one day that after skimming, occasionally pausing, I finally, eventually landed on the Editor’s note of the New Year’s edition of my favorite publication, Psychology Today. Every month I wonder how and why they happened to accurately hone in on such particular areas of interest to me. It feels strangely curated, like they hacked into my journal and personalized the whole issue to me. This might be concerning except I know that, if they really did this, they’d splice up the articles so they begin in the middle which would be madness, so I suppose it's just a coincidence. Or an indication that my thoughts are trending.

I generally don’t pay much attention to the Editor’s Notes but this one really caught me. The editor's name is Kaja Perina. She titled her note, "The Journey Starts Here," and begins with a quote by Charles Darwin:

"It was a wild looking night to go to sea, but time is too precious to lose even a bad portion of it."
July 24, 1833

She goes on to say, 

"In reading Darwin's journals, I always imagine him seasick and pocked with scurvy, yet wholly undeterred. Here is a man whose life's purpose was clear to him very early, long before he realized how meaningful his work was to become in the scope of history. 

Darwin always knew what was important to him. 

Few of us are as purposefully focused as was Darwin.  We move through the days knowing we are not always honoring our priorities and best intentions.  Sometimes these align only under duress or with acute change: a new relationship, job, or child. But also...loss, illness, and death. 

The goal: To clarify our sense of purpose before life circumstances make it thunderously clear.

And that clarity starts with tapping into our own values.

"We're not all Darwin. But, for each of us, our own journey feels every bit as meaningful as the HMS Beagle's voyage turned out to be." 

Maybe it’s that I’m in my 40’s now and it seems like more of my peers are dealing with really heavy stuff. Maybe I’m just paying better attention. But I’ve put in practice taking stock of my life in recent years and have engaged in conversations with people who find themselves in a crossroads of crisis. Cancer diagnoses, decisions of divorce, life-altering accidents. Loss. Of loved ones, of past lives, of hopes, of future visions. Faced with a new life full of uncharted paths off the edge of familiar maps, on terra incognita.

I recently interviewed a man in his 30’s who, in Dec. 2021 spent five weeks in the hospital having come very close to dying from Covid. As in, doctors told his wife to start making funeral plans. I didn’t know much about him other than his dire situation, that he has three young children, and that we go to the same church. Last Christmas we ended up sitting at the same table at a large Christmas gathering. The noise and chaos threatened my brain as it began switching over to low-power mode. But when we exchanged pleasantries and introductions (his name is Jake), and learning he was who I’d heard about, my brain powered back up and I jumped right in:

“You were in the hospital for how long? Five weeks? So do you have, like, a new lease on life now?” My question may sound cavalier but my sincerity was not. As if ready for such a question, he immediately responded,

“Yes, I do, actually.” And he explained further.

It was a remarkable way to begin a conversation with someone new, someone in the midst of reclaiming and living a new life, lately transformed, re-examining his purpose and what he truly values. He said,

“Prior to my getting sick, my goal was always to save up so that once I retire, I can do all of these things I might want to do. I had always made time for my family. When I was in law school I would end my studies by 5-6:00 at night because I was newly married and my family was always a priority.  But in my mind I always thought that, ok I can do things later.  Like, my purpose was to provide a financially stable family life for everyone else and then once I ever achieved that, if I ever did, then I finally got to live life. After I got sick, my priorities changed. I still want to financially provide for my family, but instead of waiting for ten, twenty years down the road, I want to take the opportunities that I have now, because I'm alive now and can actually go and do the things that I want to do with my family.  I don't want to waste my life thinking about what I could have done or should have done.  I want to be able to live life. We only have one.  It took me almost dying to realize that."

It was a powerful exchange and added to my growing pile of evidence I have been inadvertently collecting that life does not actually go the way we anticipate or plan for. The quote from the magazine editor is a warning to those who have not yet been forced or compelled to give pause, but I dare say that day will come in some form or another.

I am writing this on Groundhog Day and I could not imagine a film better suited to the theme here. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time and I think about it oft. Bill Murray’s character, Phil, is compelled to re-examine his life when he suddenly is not allowed to move on to the next day, forced to live the same day and the same events, over and over again until he gets his life right. The movie becomes more profound for me every time I watch it. (Incidentally, it maintains its full hilarity. Funny + poignant is probably my fave combo) It’s a nice lesson and illustration. But Phil is given what we are not: Time. He re-lives the same day again and again (I read once that it all adds up to about six years. Isn’t that wild to think about?) His life only gets to continue when he self-actualizes: Becomes a much-improved version of himself, completely transforming his values and views and the way he approaches his relationships, embracing today and appreciating all the more tomorrow. We cannot redo days, correcting what we did wrong. We must stop, see ourselves and consciously choose.

So, I'd like to make a recommendation to stop now and call it an endpoint, and end to what was. Flip the pages in reverse and examine your life until now. Then, pivot and turn around with your new information, and with purpose and with resolve, begin a new one.

I couldn’t decide between a pic of Darwin or Bill Murray so I combined them. Somehow it feels right.

for my entertainment and yours