I think one of the surest ways to get super stuck in the pursuit of your thing is to say that the time and energy you’ve spent doing the not-thing was all for nothing.
And then get all mired in regret, pretty much the foreboding ingredient in brewing up some bitter funk, making it almost impossible to let go of the not-thing and clear the way for happier work.
If I call my last experience a big, fat, failing waste (just for example), then I’ll probably end up paralyzed with the fear of choosing “wrong“ again. (I’m not so sure you can ever choose “wrong.” But I am very sure it can feel that way.)
And after regret gets you all jammed up in the search for your perfect incarnation of work, you feel justified in refusing to choose anything until you’re eleventy thousand percent sure that this time it’s the bestest, most perfect Thing ever. Without risk or vulnerability or fear.
We’re going for fail proof, baby.
So now we’re only willing to consider ideas that are guaranteed to make us all fizzy with glee and enthusiasm. (Guaranteed, the Gods chuckle.)
Possible solutions? Well at some point you probably need a little bit of faith in order to take the next teeny, tiny step forward. But oof, at this point faith can be really hard to come by.
I usually have to do some reconnaissance work first, where I try to suss out some teeny, tiny reason why that the whole not-thing endeavor was maybe, possibly, not a completely wasted effort. For me it helps to tease some shred of worth out of the last experience in order to clear some room for the next one.
Because then, once you can find something palatable in the bitter brew, it’s much easier to entertain the possibility that maybe this is the exact spot you were supposed to arrive at all along.
The spot that will serve as a jumping off point for your next big thing.
Making it easier to see why the seemingly random skills and connections and insights you gathered while doing the wrong thing were absolutely necessary in order to find the next right thing. And then we can see the necessity of our meandering loop.
But, yeah, that recognition of serendipity always seems to come in hindsight. Oh, the glorious wisdom of hindsight. Kinda works like that funky regret, only all cleaned up and tied with a bow.
Have you made any sense of your meandering loop? Or are you one of those annoying lucky direct-route, knew-my-thing-from-the-get-go kind of people?
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I’m always trying to make sense of my never-ending, meandering loop! A good friend wrote this to me the other day: There is a use for all of it, a way to turn everything into compost and therefore a beautiful garden. That simple sentence has been so helpful to me. It keeps me from regret over the past and helps calm my fear of moving forward when I’m not “eleventy thousand percent sure” (which I never, ever am!).
I spent a good deal of time bemoaning my practically 10 years in computers. Because where, oh where, is the usefulness in that. But the loop led me to California, which led me to Oregon. And it led me to my most beloved pup. Both of which helped me find my thing. And since I was worried that no one would hire me because I wasn’t fantastic at programming and technical stuff was mostly a foreign country – and as it turns out, I did really well in my career – it gave me more confidence in myself and my skills in general.
This did remind me of a post I wrote because I couldn’t commit to what path to take for my thing – and as it turned out, I was waiting for the thing that would be perfect forever and ever and ever. (Is there such a thing? And wouldn’t we only know it in hindsight if there was?)
I like the idea of compost and garden. Will have to remember that one.