Did 2013 shake your foundations, even just a little? I spent yesterday entering year-end receipts to take to the accountant, and, as much as working with numbers addles my poor little brain, it’s always interesting to go through the year in that way. Seeing the purchase of X book, or Y training, I can feel, once again, the sense of not knowing where this new idea was going to take me, but that I simply had to investigate it. Like I was being pulled along by an invisible thread, always somehow trusting that the fears before me would be no more real than those I'd left behind.
In so many ways, for so many people, this has been a “get real about your dreams” year. I’ve watched countless friends take steps away from the meaningless in their lives, and toward things they’ve always wanted to do but … couldn’t … for whatever reason. It’s like all at once, we stepped into the guidance counselor’s office, and, to borrow from the immortal genius of Monty Python, had our “Lion Tamer” moment.
Some of these friends have indeed gone on to tame lions, and it is a gorgeous thing to witness. Some have taken smaller steps, requiring of them nothing less than total commitment and willingness to face their fears. It’s not the distance you and I have covered this year, but the fact that we’ve followed the pull of that invisible thread, which makes us feel so very alive.
Maybe for you the steps have been subtle. Maybe the pauses in between have given you time to fully adjust to the new terrain. Maybe you don’t quite see that all the little steps have added up to take you somewhere new. Can you take a moment now to look back over the year, and name the things that are different from who and where and what they were before?
And now that you can see them, and have named them; now that you know the ways in which you’ve left Chartered Accountancy behind forever (no offense to my accountancy friends; it’s the Python boys’ joke, not mine), how does it fit? Is this somewhere you want to live? Is this “You?”
This year has involved so many radical transformations for me, I had to have a friend remind me the other day that if I were to look, I’d actually find that there are more ways I’m the same as before than different. Some days I have to just take his word on that. Some days, I feel as though everything I think and know and feel about myself is utterly new. Which presents some challenges. Because, standing in this new terrain, I’m not at all certain of my footing -- there’s been a lot of WTF? this year, as I’ve worked to get used to this new sense of what’s possible.
But here’s the thing: this year has been bananas, true, but it’s only the calendar that’s ending. Energetically, we’re just hitting cruising altitude. So what do you want for next year? What do you want for you? Is this enough for you, or is there a lion tamer in there somewhere, whom you’re dying to meet? Because, if so, there’s probably never been a better time in your life to take that chance.
So, as you prepare to flip the calendar to 2014, skip ahead to the bottom of this year's final exam, and ask yourself the Bonus Question: Is you is, or is you ain’t? (Hint: that fear you feel, rushing up from your gut? It’s the lion tamer calling. You can bring it. Let's do this thing. Let’s go tame some lions, you and me.)