You have infinite capacity for transformation

new beginnings are wasted on young people

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

My 19-year-old daughter is at that excellent life stage where she can choose to be anything she likes.

She doesn’t need to worry about someone saying, “Oh, I thought you were a…” or “But what about the box I’ve already put you in?” She can change majors, try out jobs, chase geese, and generally discover what she likes - and doesn’t - without worrying she is breaking some code or rule. If she takes a year or a semester off, she needn’t fear sliding into irrelevance or feeling her life is somehow wasted. She’s good. She can be or do whatever she wants, and try whatever she feels like.

If you are breathing, you are also at this life stage.

Every choice and change you make will have consequences, but that is true whether you’re 19 or 99. The difference now is that you have skills, resources, experiences, and relationships to help you navigate those consequences, which you probably didn’t have when you were 19.

Change, excitement, beginnings, new identities and opportunities are not the exclusive domain of the young. You don’t owe anyone your life, and you are not boxed in by any of your choices. You can embed, change, or walk away from them at any point. Nothing you have done is wasted. You needed all of it to be who you are now, and you will carry it all into your future. You won’t know how that weird job you did, the temporary detour you took, or the decades sunk in a career or relationship you grew out of will show up and be exactly what you need to tackle a future problem, but it will. And if it doesn’t, you have a good story to tell at a dinner party with the friend you never dreamed you’d make.

Your life should not be a tidy CV or a consistent brand story. Maybe your dream life is seven different lives, one after another or all at once. If you’re choosing between a life that results in an impressive and consistent LinkedIn profile or a life that results in the bones for a dramatic novel or epic movie, don’t shortchange yourself.

Or, as my grandfather would say, far more succinctly than I have: you only get one.

Til next week,

AM

P.S. If you’re delighted with where you’re currently at in your life, get off the internet, close your inbox, and get busy enjoying it. This email is not for you. Don’t let yourself near social media or self-help; they will only undermine your satisfaction.