What Could Be
02/04/12 08:41 AM
My child,
I’ve been thinking about things. About how we become tired, overwhelmed sometimes. About choices made or not made. Consequences. Life tracks. What could have been.
And I think “what could have been” is a trap. All of us are worried about falling off the bike when we’re already on the way, and simultaneously worrying about whether it’s the right way at all. It’s a psychological trap. It’s never about “what could have been”. It’s certainly not about what has been. It’s always about “what could be”.
Wall Street conventional wisdom is that “Success always climbs a wall of fear.”
Churchill, arguably the most successful statesman in modern history, said, “Never dwell on anything from your past that doesn’t help you with your future.”
He also said that, “Success is a matter of going from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm.”
Another obscure philosopher has noted that “Life is not about what you do; it is about what you do about what you do.”
I know enough about being haunted by my past to know what a waste it is. There is a great line in the movie, A Beautiful Mind, where the math department chairman is asking Russell Crowe’s character, John Nash who is schizophrenic, about being haunted by his ongoing hallucinations. Nash says, “well they are my past, Martin, and everyone is haunted by their past. I just choose to ignore them and they tend to leave me alone. I think they’ve given up on me.”
So true. Self-mortifiers tend to accuse those who disregard their past of being hypocritical. Maybe we should remember the other end of the spectrum, that we are all generally the last ones to forgive ourselves. It is said that suffering is the path to wisdom, but that is only true if we allow ourselves to become wise, as survivors of what has gone before.
There is no “what could have been”. There is “what has been”, but that leads, for all of us, to “what could be”. At any point in time, any person has “stuff” that they can shape into a future. That stuff is material, it is relationships, it is life-lessons, stuff we’ve seen in our own lives and others. It is faith in the grace that got us through before and a growing belief in where that grace came from. It is the treasures we have collected, and some of the most precious are the ones hardest earned.
You are older than you once were but always younger than you will be. You will always still be learning, but you are wiser than your years. Like everyone, you have made decisions that shape your current path, and maybe it has been more of a thrill-ride than you would have liked, but you get to choose where you go from here. In the greater scope of things, you have immense control over that path.
You already know that. Your life is an act in heroism. You have already gone from being a vulnerable child, to a reckless adventurer, to a capable explorer in the world, an object of admiration to so many around you. The people who love you the most, who yearn for your success, sometimes seem the most critical, but they are the same ones who would fight tigers for you. They want you to have the chances you deserve. What they might not realize is that you do have those chances! And you will be “there” before you know it.
You are a hero,
and heroes often feel overwhelmed by what they face. You have the integrity to face things and take responsibility and ownership. That is what your friends, colleagues, teachers, and your family all see in you. That is integrity, a rare commodity indeed. You’ve had some traumas growing up, and you’ve had some bumps in the road, some chosen, some not. But you have intelligence, and skill, and grace, and integrity, and it’s been in you from the beginning. I’ve always known that you would do something beautiful, but I didn’t foresee you having dragons to slay, or that you’d slay them so well and so early.
Take stock. Be encouraged. Allow yourself to take a little credit. Don’t feel that you need to cover over things that worry you, or scare or disappoint or embarrass you. Share your concerns honestly. There is no judgment for those who seek sincerely. The fraternity of adults who have “been through it” all know this. You have a lot going for you. We’re cheering for you, we are there for you,
and we are very very proud.
Love
Dad
