Recently, my husband, Chad, and I were at a business entrepreneurial event and we met this older fellow named Levi. Yes, I already realize as I age I will have much resentment for calling him an older fellow as we have some inherent belief that we will live forever until one day it hits us that mortality is imminent. Anyways...he was at this event representing his life coaching business.
Chad and I were there representing separate endeavors while still supporting each other through the means of motivating each other to take the next steps with our vision. Different, while same coherently. However, the advice Levi had to share was all about how it's all about togetherness. He expressed that we had to make sacrifices for the "we" of things. The more he spoke, the more I sensed that he referred to togetherness as "sameness." Was he referring that we must meld into one mind that thinks and perceives life in all the same ways?
It made me question our life path. "Does together actually mean same?" "Can we forge unique paths and still do so in a way that is supportive?" It made me question how trying to forge a path of "sameness" might inadvertently force one or the other to "change" who they are, and that just didn't sit with me.
I think the desire for "same-ness" is rooted in a fear of acceptance. A fear of acceptance of self and ergo a fear that others may not accept you. I have realized I have married an opposite in many ways. It has been a light on my shadows, and a guiding force to wage the waters that I would have never trudged alone.
To be honest, I wouldn't want to marry for "same." Within that sameness is a confirmation bias to never grow, well...besides growing in ego. I want to smell new fragrances, taste new flavors, and expand upon the experience of being human, with the limited time we have in one life.
I desire to learn what it means to bridge a gap of difference, because if you can do it once you can do it again. There has been too much hiding behind a mask going on. To be honest, on a macro scale, I think we need much more of the bridging of gaps.
When I think back on it, I kind of want to ask Levi why his wife wasn't there with him at that entrepreneurial event. Yes, maybe our being there together with different outcomes confused him, but at least we were there together. The bridge wasn't the literal task, but the life path. The momentum to explore the curiosity, to dance in the unknown, and the shared desire to grow and bloom alongside each other.
My life motto has always been "become comfortable with being uncomfortable." We can't possibly know what we don't know.
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