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No Regrets
When I sit down to write, I often reflect on what is happening in my own life or what is swirling around the collective. Lately, I’ve been having many conversations with friends and coaching clients who are expressing regret that they didn’t make certain decisions in life when the opportunities to do so presented themselves. These regrets can be relatively small - “I should have taken that great apartment when it became available,” “I wish I had stuck with playing the piano,” “Why did I buy that expensive dress I’ll never wear?” - and don’t impact one's life trajectory too much. But then there are the regrets that have much deeper consequences and leave us with lifelong wounds.
Beginner’s Mind…Again
Last week, I was excited to see my personal belongings being loaded on a truck and headed to NY, where they will set sail to meet me in my new home across the sea.
As the moving van pulled away, I was reminded of the first trip I took there in April. Leaving Rome and heading deeper into the countryside, I had a bit of a panic attack as I started to ascend the road leading to “the rock” upon which my hilltop city rests. Within minutes of arriving at the place where I was staying, it suddenly hit me that I had never been to this part of the country before, didn’t know a soul, and didn’t speak the language. But fear of the unknown quickly turned to excitement of the unknown as I reminded myself that I was going to have the opportunity to have beginner's mind again and to see so many new things that were waiting for me to discover.
The Open Palm
When I was a young child, I couldn’t wait until I was an old person (which I was sure all 40-year-olds were). I thought the years of working would be finished, and there would be financial security, a solid relationship with the person I would grow old with, and a house full of children and grandchildren. Naively, I thought that all of the trials and tribulations of life would be behind me. But as I have exceeded the doddering age of 40, I have come to see that the picture doesn’t always look the way it was envisioned in youth and that those lessons, and the pain that often accompanies them, do not stop.
The Luxury of Enough
I wrote my first blog, called “The Luxury of Enough,” way back in 2011. Back then, we were post-2008 housing crash, and the once “must have” McMansions had become our white elephants. Self-storage units and pod use exploded, and our homes, garages, basements, and attics were bursting at the seams with all the things we just had to have. Soon we realized that the accumulation was choking us out, and maintaining, insuring, servicing, and cleaning our “stuff” was sucking our valuable life energy.
The Stranger
I recently heard someone say that freedom wasn’t “nothing left to lose” but rather, “nothing left to be.” What a powerful statement on the peace that comes with finally finding and accepting one’s authentic self.