When You Outgrow Your Personal and/or Professional Life
Adult realizations in the age of 'stuck'
I’VE OFTEN SAID, if you’re not evolving, you’re devolving or worse- stagnant. “I reserve the right to change!” - My favorite quote of my late Pastor. Amen, Pastor Henry, Amen!
The thing with change though, is no one likes it. Oh sure, we say we can’t wait to lose the weight, find a healthy mate, land the new promotion or move to that new city, until…. the requirements of the change set it.
With every change, a new set of standards accompanies a different level of existence.
The universal precepts of life we try to reject- to our discomfort or peril. It’s like your favorite wool sweater. It’s all comfy with visions of warm fires and hot cocoa with marshmallows dancing in winter glee, until it hits your skin and roughly 2 hours later, you wish it came with a set of body scratchers. Change. It’s rough and it’s necessary.
Imagine how the first time mother feels who knows this created being, who is likely 6lbs or more, has to come out of her body! I remember the exact moment I realized my pregnancy wasn’t going to end with me being able to get off of the coaster at the very top, even if I screamed panic attack.
Change, on any level, is the same. It begets more change.
While at times we are working toward and even petitioning heaven for change, most things associated with said changes are things we did not anticipate. The cost/benefit ratios FEEL a bit unbalanced. A bit like someone not only moved your cheese, but left you with plastic food. It can all be a bit bewildering.
But just like the sun is preparing to rise or set, this planet is in constant motion and like time, stands still for no one. In life too, change is occurring. From the quantum field of energy to the matter your own thoughts will eventually manifest, change is a constant.
I’m giving my attention to this poetic nuance due to a recent personal revelation. On a fall afternoon walk with my mother, recapping the health of ALL my relationships, I stopped in my thought tracks as the realization hit me like a ton of bricks… “Mom, I think I’ve outgrown my friends.”
Some are stuck in high school, some college and some in their current self made hell- whether thinking, relatability or perceptions and depth.
It’s immature & negligent to think professed faith alone, is enough to sustain the practical maturation process of what’s supposed to be a consecrated demographic. Sound lofty? Nah. Love covers and grace abounds, but rejecting one’s own growth is sacrilege.
With a sense of matter of fact meets revelatory ecstasy, it all just made sense! God! Was it really that simple?! All the upheaval, miscommunication, hurt feelings, bewilderment, unmet expectations etc…the snow was finally settling in the globe of my life.
Don’t know about you, but I’m not only a participant in my life, I’m an observer. I observe every person and connection in my life and my relationship to or within an ecosystem. I participate or exit, accordingly.
Not that every relationship doesn’t have its ebbs and flows, but when people who have ‘‘known’ you since youth mischaracterize your heart while espousing mindsets and subsequent behaviors of said youth, or on a professional level, your company constantly overlooks your skills/value as a valued employee are no longer acceptable or tolerable for YOU, you know something has changed- In you.
Realize, there doesn’t have to be a sense of anger or grief when your eyes open to see with clear discernment. It’s almost like a nice warm shower of reality, the peace that surpasses all understanding that allows you to see with eternal eyes, that you are on purpose and your mission has new requirements.
Imagine how quickly we would dismantle the annual eighty billion dollar divorce industry or corp litigation losses if we all accepted that divine peace and kept moving to maturation.
It’s at that very moment of revelation the conundrum of ‘freedom isn’t free’ becomes a practical reality. It will cost you. But as ADULTS we should know that by now.
If we are numbering our days as if they were our last, we would partner with our Creator to seize every opportunity to become who we were destined to be. And many times, that requires a maturation process that can no longer find satisfaction in self & surrounding mediocrity or the constant apology for who we are, much less, who we are becoming. (present progressive)
In the era of affirmation or litigation, wouldn’t it be lovely if we all took responsibility for our own maturation and allowed people the right to change?
Letting go is never easy even when we KNOW it’s for our good. It’s why we pine for “the good ol’ days”, making idols of a past that was riddled with its own frailties and growing pains.
If you choose to stay in a relationship, whether professional or personal, while maturing to your next level of resolve to be the fully realized you, mental, emotional and attitudinal adjustments will need to be made on YOUR part if you are to remain without unrealistic expectations, bitterness, exhaustion or pride.
Almost on cue, my twenty-six year old daughter and I realized we are on the same cloud with the same scenarios, both personally and professionally. That’s important to note, because whether we are twelve, sixteen, thirty or sixty-five, how we relate to ourselves, life, our Creator and those He created, is important on the life contentment and life more abundant scale.
I am committed to becoming what my soul ‘knows right well’. My resolve is to trust the process and the accompanying changes. When asking what your ‘purpose’ is perhaps rest in knowing that you may have many. You may simply be on the current rung of the ladder of your life or the next ripple in the pool of your eternal footprint. Nothing is final until it’s final.
I want to encourage you to embrace the cost. Embrace whatever the cost of leaving the old for the new and do so with childlike wonder and anticipation of the good to come. Prepare for the monsters under your proverbial bed that will emerge and call upon the wisdom you garnered from the last growth cycle to overcome the temptation to become stuck.
You were created for greatness and while that may be subjective, a world full of accountable adults, living a life of contentment in maturation, in the midst of societal turmoil, sure beats the alternative.
Commit, Resolve, Seek, Knock, Ask- The next time someone asks for the adults in the ‘room’ to please stand up, you will be counted.