During a recent interview I was asked a simple but interesting question: “How did you get from A to B to C?”
Ask that, or something similar, often enough and some of the answers you hear will strike you as truly remarkable. Some of my most trusted friends have come from family situations that have humbled and amazed me. It takes bravery to leave everything behind and push on, trusting that life will be better somewhere else. Everyone has a story — a great story — and yet it seems that too often all we see around us are front yards and driveways.
Because life requires the juggling navigation of accidents mixed with planned maneuvers, we stay so busy immersed in the moment we don’t reflect on how things evolved along the way. Intros and interviews shaped by reflection questions always take me to a different place than the humdrum chatter of my latest book or film. Chances are that your life has unfolded much like mine: Navigation has involved the actions of others, choices, and situations thrust upon us we did not expect.
During our formative years our families tend to anchor down or move around, so starting point “A” is at the mercy of our upbringing. As emancipation beckons, we evaluate our options and plan our next move. Point “B” results from a decision we made propelled by desire or necessity. We want to move out or have to move out. Transfer or quit schools. Switch jobs. Enter or exit a serious relationship. These major moves are life’s significant emotional events — “macro-moments” that stand far taller in daily life’s planted field of micro-moments that comprise each day. Significant emotional events are what shape and re-shape us throughout our adult years.
So if today we reside at point C, what’s the plan for advancing to D? Do you want to make that happen, hope it happens, or simply going to let it happen? It is said that where a man or woman is at 50 is where he or she will die. I’m not sure I buy this but it does seem that as people age moving to D is an inconvenience they do not seek. Unless, of course, the phone rings and a significant emotional event is shared through the telephone line.
Significant emotional events come in two forms, good ones and bad ones. Good ones give us a boost. Bad ones bring us down. They can be self-created or result from the actions of others. Advancing our lives from one letter to the next typically involves internal and external stimuli. We own our internal engine of change. But typically we need help from others to get where we want to go. Help arrives from three directions:
- We chase and secure it.
- Someone else proactively reaches out to give us a boost or lend a hand.
- We pay (or barter) for assistance.
To proactively advance from one letter to the next you should know where you want to go and why you want to get there. Once you know that, building and executing the plan is simplified.
What I enjoyed about the interview’s question that forced reflection is that it made me revisit those choices and motivations. This is a good, refreshing place to visit. Part of knowing yourself is knowing who you are, how you got where you are, and why those steps have mattered.
I frequently sign off emails and letters to friends with the words, “Keep making stuff happen.” I think that phrase is my way of encouraging them to keep moving forward. Do so often enough and you’ll move through the alphabet. Hopefully you’ll enjoy pausing from time to time to look back.
Never fear the next letter. Know where you want to go, understand and own the reasons why, and take the steps to engage whatever resources — human or otherwise — you need to in order to keep making stuff happen. ‘Stuff’ is what those big capital letters are made of.
In closing, the next time you pause to read a well written obituary, note what the obit writer shares. He or she will describe the A, B, and C of someone’s life.
Letters are good. Keep hopping from one to the next.
Best always,