Can I tell you something?
The brittle winter branches shake in a slight breeze, and I watch them from the warmth of my apartment.
I am not living the life I planned to live.
I am not living the life I planned when I was 12 and determined to be a large animal veterinarian. I am not living the life I planned when I was 15 and hoped to run national political campaigns and perhaps work at the White House. I am not living the life I planned when I was 20 and had started writing fiction. I’m pretty sure I’m not even where I thought I would be a year ago!
But I am living a life, and it is wonderful one, full of possibilities and challenges.
In Louisa Mae Alcott’s book Little Women, the protagonist, Jo March, is told by a group of young attorneys that she should have been an attorney.
Jo responds, “I should have been a great many things, Mr. Mayor.”
I suspect most of us can identify with Jo’s sentiment.
There are dreams unfulfilled, talents unused, endless possibilities for alternate lives that it seems we could be living. We feel pressure to chase our most fulfilling dreams, to run after the life we want rather than the one we have. We fear that if we don’t, we might somehow be wasted.
But if we were to ask a dolphin, I think it would be clueless as to our meaning.
Dr. Shimi Kang is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and researcher who wrote the book, “The Dolphin Way.” In her TED talk on the same subject, she explained that dolphins are some of the most resilient and effective animals on our planet. The reason? They have incredible skills for adapting to their present circumstance.
Dr. Kang argues that the one skill we can develop toward a more awesome life is learning to adapt to the life we are in right now.
And of course, the first step to adapting is letting go of whatever other life we are holding on to and afraid of missing out on, and really accepting who and what and where we are right this moment.
That’s a frightening thing for humans to do, because we are told to never settle for less and we deserve so much more and all that poppycock.
Isn’t it wrong to settle?
Do we chase the life we want – a dream life, that morphs and changes like a vision – or embrace the life we have now?
And if we don’t chase the life we think we want, will our talents and abilities somehow be wasted?
Isn’t this our one life? Don’t we have to do it right?
Breathe, little dolphin.
You will not be wasted.
I’m here to tell you that embracing your current life isn’t settling. That yes, you could have been a great many things, but none of them is as important as what you are right now. Who knows what lives you are touching, what rippling little changes you have effected, that are more important than anything you could have imagined?
You may not realize it, but the life you have now demands every ounce of creativity and ability you have. Please apply it.
And once you do, I think you will start moving almost automatically in the direction you should go.
If you have a call on your life, a talent that you believe you should use, use it. Watch God open doors you didn’t even realize existed.
But don’t refuse to adapt just because you’re not living the life you planned.
This one – full of opportunities, challenges and hidden adventures – may be better than you ever dreamed.