I do not want to climb corporate ladders. I do not desire to be a CEO or CFO. While I often contemplate my ideas and abilities, I am not sold on entrepreneurship.
Of course, I have personal and professional goals. I can articulate a vision for myself and my future. I see and consider paths to realization.
Still, I do not believe myself to be ambitious in the connotative sense of the word.
The majority of my heart's desires are neither tangible nor objective:
Inner peace
A happy home
Safe spaces & relationships
Connection
Contentment
"Belovedness"
Mental health
Wholeness
A stable inner life
Authenticity
Self-acceptance
Reconciliation
Congruency
Freedom
Freedom from debt
Freedom from stories
Freedom from shame
Being a liberating presence
As I write and consider, I think "Maybe that's ambitious afterwall." When I consider the direct, generational, and collective traumas I have, the existence I envision is miraculous.
I also see how I press towards these things. In therapy. In reading and self-study. In parenting. In friendships. In relationships. "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but" I move in the direction of the "truest, most beautiful life I can imagine."
Someone recently told me, "One of your strengths is that you see yourself as water and not concrete." Sometimes it does not feel like a gift, but being fluid has brought and taught me so much. I prize the ability to reinvent.
This year I am refraining from plans and resolutions. 2021, 2022, and 2023 proved that, like life itself, I am ever-changing. As we go into 2024, I will simply remind myself, gently, ever so gently, to do more of the things that keeps this human watered and flowing.
Happy New Year, Friends! May we be "liberated from our own fear." May "our presence automatically liberates others."
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson
