stone savage

“Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions — ‘If I had my life to live over, I’d do it all the same.” - Joan MacIntosh

No lie, when I was twenty-two years old I had a Proactive Mid-Life Crisis. Seriously, I’m not kidding! I remember sitting in a park watching butterflies, ants, and lady bugs when I just happened to look around me and saw a fifty year old man who obviously wanted to believe he was still in his thirties. He looked ridiculous. I watched him for a while wondering what he thought he was really gaining; when I realized all he was doing was trying to feel better about the choices he’s made in life.

It occurred to me - one day I will be in my fifties and I will very likely have a mid-life crisis. One day I will probably look ridiculous trying to seem hip and youthful. I will most likely try to recapture my youth and try to do things I always wished I had done. Now, of course I couldn’t know at the tender age of twenty-two that I would go through such a thing, but based on how many people go through it I figured there was a good enough possibility that I should really give it some thought. I started asking myself what sorts of things might I wish I had done, or done differently, when I looked back over my life in twenty or thirty years.

[More:]

Well, it’s been nearly fifteen years since I had that existential moment. What resulted from it has been a life I have loved. Have I made mistakes? Yep. Have I had regrets? Sure. But my regrets are few and my mistakes are never repeated. I’ve even been able on some occasions to avoid repeating other’s mistakes, simply by listening to and respecting the wisdom of those who came before me. I think the most significant thing, however, is that what I have never done is to run away from a choice, a challenge, or a an opportunity for growth for any reason, even in the face of overwhelming fear. You see, I believe fear is the number one reason people end up with lives they wished they lived differently.

It is fear of disappointing our parents that can cause us to receive a degree in something we hate, or cause us to enter a career field we can’t stand. It is often fear of being hurt that causes us to run away from love even if we have to lie to ourselves to do it. It can be fear of failure that prevents us from ever attempting to succeed. Fear is truly necrotic to the soul. I have spent all of these years standing up to my fears. In so doing I have been able to make the choices in my life today that most people cannot. I have been able to experience life in a way few of my contemporaries even believe is possible.

For instance, since my early twenties I have never been so afraid to risk my heart in love that I walked away from it - no matter how many times I’ve been shattered. It’s true, I have never said no to love or run from it just because I was afraid I might get hurt or that it might change my life in ways for which I was not yet ready. I’m not saying it was easy to be that way - it wasn’t. In fact, it was excruciatingly painful on many occasions. But it has always been worth it.

I have had some amazing people in my life because of my outlook, and I have learned from every single one of them. I have had the opportunity to know fleeting moments, whirlwind romances, and loves so deep the emotions still give me warmth when I let my mind wander back in time. I have let love change me for the better, I have had it rearrange my life, and I have even had it leave me so devastated that I believed my grief would stop the Sun from rising. But, oh, the things I have learned… There have been so many lessons I have had the good fortune to learn. I cannot imagine how much less my life would be if I missed out on them.

That’s how I know that running from love, or fabricating excuses to let it fade, ends up making your life substandard from what it could have been. You think it gains you a protection from being hurt? You think it keeps your life plans on track? You think you end up happier? Pfft! Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only do you end up being hurt anyway, not only do your plans go awry anyway, and not only do you end up a miserable wreck anyway - but you also miss out on the benefits and lessons you otherwise would have gained. Your fear, my friend, makes you pay twice as much for life as facing your fear will ever require. So, how’s that working out for you?

I have also never been afraid to take risks with my work. I have moved all over this country taking the next bigger offer for the next more challenging post in my career. Was I always qualified? No. Was I always sure I was making a safe choice? No. But I did try and I learned more from those experiences than I ever did from my schoolbooks. So, yeah, I risked. I lost sometimes and I won some times, but I never missed out. My career has been very fulfilling and you’d be surprised how many employers are impressed with a level of independence and confidence a resume like that ends up reflecting.

Yet perhaps the most important thing is that in all these years I have never once run from the pain of personal growth. I have always, without fail, steeled myself and embraced the experience with open arms. To know I can be better - or even to see an opportunity to grow - and to refuse to take it, is something I cannot comprehend. I have never refused to grow; whether it came through loving someone enough to help them be happier with someone else, whether it required that I made the choice to accept failure because success would cost my honor, or even from making the silent sacrifices simply to help another human being. No matter the expense, I have chosen to grow every time I recognized life opening the door to another opportunity.

A welcome result of always rising to the challenges of life, is that I have never been ashamed to look at myself in the mirror. I live my life every day in such a way that by the time my head hits the pillow I know I will have given something better, observed something better, or become something better.

Nearly fifteen years ago I had the epiphany of a lifetime. I can honestly say that while I have much still to learn, so far I am someone who is content with the choices I made in my life - and I intend to keep it that way. When my time on Earth is over, I will consider it a life well-lived if it can never be said of me, “if only she’d been brave enough to have lived what might have been".

————————————————————————–