Be where you are

On embracing each stage

On my grandma’s porch

Although it is not ideal, there will come a time when I miss how my life looks right now. There will come a day when I long for the slow mornings, the untetheredness, the lunch walks around the block, the time spent with my parents, the tiny bouquets and happy weekend cards from my grandma, the current state of everyone I love still being here.

I have become painfully aware of how precious it is; how it’s not going to last forever. In the same way I can no longer run down the road to my cousins’ house to draw or film silly videos; eat lunch in the hallway by the music room with my friends; bump into my British roommate in the kitchen on early mornings and try to mutter some sensible Norwegian-English words.

So many things become special in hindsight. Not necessarily special because of how good it was. Just special because it belongs to a certain chapter, an age. Special because it will never be again, at least not in the same way.

It’s a beautiful thing, really—aging. Having to go through the motions of becoming; each day, not necessarily a step, but still some form of evolution. Growth is fundamentally intertwined with life. We shape and shift both internally, externally, and relationally throughout it all, whether we really intend to or not.

It’s an especially hot topic in today’s world. Although the aging part often contains wrinkle paranoia and fake youth-elixirs, and the growth is more focused on hacking and maximising. It seems like a lot of us wish to avoid the awkward stages; to rush through the doldrums and reach a higher potential as quickly as possible.

Which makes sense.

It’s not necessarily enjoyable to be a beginner. It’s not pleasant to feel lost, stupid, or stagnant. It’s like we view it as a testament of failure to not have things figured out. Like it’s a race, and we’re losing. But as Dr. Becky Kennedy says:

“People think resilience and success come from getting to ‘knowing’ as soon as possible. They’re wrong. Resilience and success come from the length of time you can tolerate being in the Learning Space. What I think is very empowering to know, is that the Learning Space [the space between ‘not knowing’ and ‘knowing’] has one feeling associated with it: frustration. That’s literally how learning feels. And if you think about that, then frustration becomes this amazing thing you can learn to love, even though it’s painful.”

As much as we want to speed through these phases—both when it comes to learning and living—the real hack is actually to not hack it.

And it’s funny. I tried writing this piece over and over again. Tried to make all my scattered not-fully-formed thoughts into one coherent thing that makes somewhat sense, and got ridiculously frustrated when I couldn’t seem to do it.

Ironically, it’s exactly what I’ve been writing about. Yet I didn’t fully make that connection until my 5th draft. Something can be staring you right in the eye, but you won’t notice it until you’re ready. You can’t know something before you know it.

I needed the four drafts before it. I needed the stumbling, slow-moving, naive stages of it. In life too. Even those that felt like wasted time.

Because as Sherry Ning once put it: “It’s not really a waste of time if it took you that long to realize what a waste of time it was. A waste of time is an existential lesson. You have to go through the “wasted” time to recognize it, and so that time wasn’t really wasted.”

What I am trying to say is: there is great value in where you are right now, even if it’s in the middle of nowhere.

I remember the first time a friend asked me: “Can we watch real TV instead?” when I turned on Disney Channel after school. Suddenly something had changed—we had reached the threshold where “play” became “hang out”, and toys were put away.

I also remember those weekday nights sitting at the dining room table doing homework, jealous that my parents could relax and do whatever they wanted, instead of crying over math equations or reading up on ancient Rome.

Everything is temporary. It’s often hard to see while we’re in the middle of it; when it feels like we’ll be stuck there forever, craving something different. Then all of a sudden, it shifts. For better or for worse—there are pros and cons to each stage. But when we know something is temporary, we tend to see it with clearer eyes. It gets easier to appreciate it for what it is; to pay attention; to notice the lessons.

It’s a tale as old as time. It’s not uncommon to take a step, then realise it wasn’t all bad back where you previously stood. There are routines you’ll miss. Problems you didn’t yet have. Experiences that could only ever have formed in that state. Blissful ignorance you took for granted.

That’s the beauty and burden of growth: once you take a step or gain a new perspective, it’s hard to shrink back into a previous state—an innocence or unawareness of before.

It makes total sense why we do what we do though. Why we reach. Why we try to plan it all out. Why we long for what seems like the most exciting or comfortable parts of the timeline.

Life is chaotic. Stressful. Sometimes devastatingly hard. We want to avoid crises, pain, and the unknown if we can. I know I certainly do.

But the truth is, we are ever-changing and not truly able to control anything.

Suddenly the one thing we were sure about seems wrong. Suddenly what we worked hard for doesn’t spark the same joy. Our interests change, feelings change, circumstances change. We need a certain amount of looking forward—of starting something today that we will benefit from down the road—but at the end of the day, the only thing we can really do is exist right now.

So be where you are and try to see the magic in it. Float in the deep waters rather than using all the energy, struggling to swim.

If you’re a stupid teenager—be a stupid teenager and revel in the fact that you get to see your friends every day at school and don’t have to think about mortgages or insurance yet. Be a lost 20 something. Or 30 or 40 or 50 something. Enjoy the freedom of getting to make pancakes for dinner, staying up as late as you want, moving across the country, or quitting your job if you want.

Take a look around. There is something here, in this moment, that a younger you once craved or dreamed or wondered about. Maybe it’s an experience you’ve finally had, a place you’ve gotten to visit, an item you’ve always wanted, a career, a mindset, a hand to hold.

For me, right now, it’s sitting at a desk in front of a big, sunny window, free to write and post it on the Internet for you to read. It’s being able to get in the car and drive somewhere—anywhere—instead of bike or walk. It’s feeling seen in a way I haven’t before.

And it’s not perfect. I feel lost and frustrated and behind. But I’m trying my best to embrace this form of the Learning Space. To see all the specks of gold that exist in it even if the whole thing doesn’t glitter. To notice the uniqueness of this phase and age, knowing it won’t last forever.

My life might look completely different in a year.

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