The Spiralling Path
Often circles or a crooked path are used as metaphors for your personal life journey. Instead I find as I listen to others talk about their life journey there are themes that are repeated. Some of these themes started in childhood and continue to be repeated well into adulthood. For example I had a women in class the other day, who in elementary school had been kicked out of class repeatedly, found herself kicked out of school into an alternative setting, was presently incarcerated, sent to a work-release program which she was kicked out of and thus back in my class. As she told me this story I asked her if she heard a theme in her life journey. I then asked- It sounds like you know how to get kicked out - are you interested in figuring out how to stay in.
One theme I think we all share is defining our purpose, another is coming to terms with our own parents and our role as a parent. In your late teens you may have questioned your life purpose -- focusing on high school graduation, post secondary education, your career path. Later in life you came back to this same question--what is life all about-- and this time you saw it from a new angle a higher level perhaps, it may have focused on family and advancing your professional career. Then in mid-life this same question still came back as you thought - have I done what I wanted to do with my life - have I accomplished everything I set out to do - is this all there is. Well into your eighties you may continue by contemplating- how can I give back- what legacy have/or do I want to leave. Your view of your parents probably shifted from when you were an adolescent, to being a teenager, a young adult, an adult, and when you became a parents and for some of you a grandparent.
No matter where you are in the spiral of life, today take a moment to reflect back on a theme that has spiraled upward throughout your life. What have you learned, how has your thinking shifted? Doing this is a good reminder that life is a journey and whatever small events you are struggling with today will tomorrow, or next month, or a year from now be seen in a very different way.
One theme I think we all share is defining our purpose, another is coming to terms with our own parents and our role as a parent. In your late teens you may have questioned your life purpose -- focusing on high school graduation, post secondary education, your career path. Later in life you came back to this same question--what is life all about-- and this time you saw it from a new angle a higher level perhaps, it may have focused on family and advancing your professional career. Then in mid-life this same question still came back as you thought - have I done what I wanted to do with my life - have I accomplished everything I set out to do - is this all there is. Well into your eighties you may continue by contemplating- how can I give back- what legacy have/or do I want to leave. Your view of your parents probably shifted from when you were an adolescent, to being a teenager, a young adult, an adult, and when you became a parents and for some of you a grandparent.
No matter where you are in the spiral of life, today take a moment to reflect back on a theme that has spiraled upward throughout your life. What have you learned, how has your thinking shifted? Doing this is a good reminder that life is a journey and whatever small events you are struggling with today will tomorrow, or next month, or a year from now be seen in a very different way.
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