The Courage to Want More After the Career - Part 2 (episode 291-2)
They didn’t tell us how sweet this season would be, that this third chapter of 60 plus could be the best one yet.
Yes, there’s that large number but we’re still here and we’ve typically got less responsibilities. Mike Pittman is entering that time. Enjoying the grandkids but then giving them back because we get to have the joy without the downside. Mike watches his grandkids in their determination to sit, to crawl, to walk. They don’t give up. They keep going until they have mastered the skill. Small accomplishments are a big deal as Mike shares with us. So why not be a little more like that. Let’s go for the adventure, for the excitement of the small steps that lead us to fulfillment.
Mike Pitman is our guest this week for Permission to Want More: What’s Next and What’s Left. This is part two of our conversation.
You can find him on Instagram at Tall Bald Mike Photography.
They're so excited about every little accomplishment and even though there's a lot of failure, it doesn't stop them.
— Mike Pittman, how we can be more like a child
Supposed To?
Thoughts from The Courage to Want More After the Career - Part 2
Darn it. I was buzzing right along writing this blog when lo and behold, the page jumped to something else and I couldn’t seem to get back the first couple of paragraphs of what I started. (It was about Mike’s observation that kids are driven to do things until they master them.) This is why we ‘save’ every few moments so we don’t lost what we’ve been working on. Oh well, I guess I was supposed to write about something else.
That brings me to an interesting point. Someone I respect, someone I’m learning from, has put forth the notion that things go exactly as they are “supposed to.” I’ve been trying on this concept and while I get her point, it doesn’t totally work for me. For me ‘‘supposed to” has an air of fatalism, of something that was destined to happen. When you look up the actual meaning of the word it is expected to or required to.
There are so many factors that go into the decisions we make and while I do believe that some things are pre-determined to happen, I believe that are many other factors at play. Like our free will. Like the forces of good and evil. Like the influence of the world. Like our nature and our nurture. For me all of these come into play to equal what happens to us, how we relate to what has happened to us, and how we will move forward based on what has happened to us. Supposed to does not absolve you from what happens no matter what choice you make. You are not off the hook because it was supposed to go this way or that. It is still your responsibility good, bad or indifferent.
Supposed to? I lean towards no, at least not exclusively. You know how I get about word choices so a better one (in my opinion) is that’s the way it was, it went the way that it went. Let me give you an example. This woman was coaching someone about her son being a heroin addict. Her response was, It went exactly the way it was supposed to. That hit me funny and got me to thinking. (I know, imagine such a thing.) Now maybe her son was expected to be a heroin addict based on choices, biology, personal experience, etc. but was he required to be one? No, I don’t think so. Supposed to is a thought, it’s not a fact in my opinion.
In this model we’re not giving quite enough credit to agency - free will. Now no one sets out to be a heroin addict, I get that. But choice after choice can lead you there and I think that’s my point. The heroin addict is not required to be one. This may all seem like semantics and it probably is but it’s been on my mind all week so since the first go-round of this blog got 86’d you could say I was supposed to write about supposed to. Haha, yes, that.
You don’t have to stay in supposed to.
— The gift of choice is yours to exercise
