And so my sister begins her career. A nightime trip into the William Anglis to watch her first birth.
I marvel yet again at the contrast of our lives.
One womb. Similar life experience and yet here we are. She with a career relatively fixed, a relationship with a man she loves which will no doubt progress into marriage and then babies and then grandchildren. And me. No I’m not jealous. I am fractionally confused. I have no career path, I have no relationship, and I have no idea really where my life is going.
I don’t know what I’ll do with myself beyond uni. I don’t know if this is even where my real ability lies. I cannot however hard I try, see myself in a nine-to-five job as I cannot see what kind of job that would be.
What is with being the one who likes having goals, being planned? And having no footing there whatsoever.
Trust. How can you do good in the world if you can’t find a need that you can meet? If you are waiting for one to fall into your lap because you don’t know any other way.
I am not concerned about the future. I am concerned about the now. What am I doing with my life right now? What moments do we waste sitting around waiting for tomorrow?
I’ve been thinking about this since I first read it a day or so after you posted it. I’ve been thinking similar stuff this year. I think everybody does really.
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Careers, relationships, etc, are the ‘practicals’ – The things we use to reflect upon the value of our lives. “Am I doing something meaningful with my time? Am I making a difference? Are my choices good enough?”.
It’s certainly true that you “can tell a tree by its fruit” but in this instance, the fruit is only part of the picture.
The more abstract form of the question comes from the desire to have a sense of fulfilment and purpose to our existence.
It’s in this context that we can perhaps best see that, in and of themselves, our relationships and careers will never do that for us.
They are simply outworkings of the choices we made in their respective moments, hopefully using the best of our collective life experience at the time.
So, in one sense, what we do and who we love have a definite role as a witness to both our maturity and our worldview.
What is perhaps more relevant though, is the heart and head that made those choices in the first place.
So to ask myself if I’m wasting the moment, I guess I’d have to consider whether or not I’m changing the head and heart so that they will be equipped to make my life choices when the need arises.
Just a thought! 🙂
-Paul.