December 2008

Be What You Want to Be When You Grow Up… At Any Age

“Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!”

Like the lyrics to my favorite tune, these wonderfully whimsical lines from the Dr. Seuss children’s book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” continually re-play inside my head. It’s a story of life’s challenges and change. It is an insightfully relatable tale about personal crossroads.

Like Seuss’ curiously smart and capable character, we begin our adult life on our way to great places. We go merrily down the winding road of life until unavoidably, we hit hang-ups and bumps. When this happens, we can get into a slump and come to a complete standstill, uncomfortably residing in what Seuss calls “The Waiting Place.” Here we wait for other people to give their approval, the phone to ring with a new job offer or that special someone, that certain something that will come along and make us rich, material things we mistakenly believe will make us happy and even a second chance.

We must come to the conclusion that “The Waiting Place” is not for us. We must never let life’s temporary detours thwart our dreams and goals. The true measure of our success is not what happens to us; it is how we handle what happens, what we learn, and the fortitude and confidence required to keep moving.

However, being out in front of the race has its price. We will often feel lonely and at times will even be scared out of pants. The rewards of meeting life’s ups and downs head on and embracing them as challenges that must be met and overcome far outweigh the costs of standing still, becoming stagnant and living with wouldas, couldas and shouldas.

For most of us, approaching or hitting the half-turn in life’s race marks a monumental personal crossroad. We question where our lives went, are we satisfied and what do we still want to accomplish? For me, there was this sense of going to bed one night as an adolescent girl, filled with youthful goals, ideologies and a naïve sense of a long road ahead and waking up the next morning as this fifty-year-old woman white knuckling the last turn of midlife with still so much to do.

None of us wants to close the last chapter of our life’s book with wouldas, couldas and shouldas. Consequently, we must make the decision to step out and move forward, sometimes leaving behind what is comfortable and secure. Weariness of our “waiting place” must be greater than our fear of taking a “leap of faith.” We must seek out our “Great Places”.

With these pearls of wisdom in hand, lace up your sneakers and come along with me! Whether your dream is to climb Mt. Everest, to shoot the rapids of the Colorado River, to take that long talked about Alaskan cruise, be the star in your local community theatre or perhaps begin a long awaited career path. You can be what you want to be when you grow up…at any age. It’s, as Dr. Seuss would say, “98 ¾ percent guaranteed!”