RITE OF PASSAGE

Some things that can be done…should not be attempted. Yes, and maybe we should allow some things we’re doing to actually… go gently into that good night. (My apologies, Dylan Thomas)

I remember coming to a major decision in my life when I was 50. I was enjoying a wonderful career doing the very thing I loved…creating and living by my wits, yet I found myself just maintaining artists with a repetitive sameness to it all, writing and producing to please an industry and dreaming the dreams of unbelievably gifted artists. Let me be very clear…I owe so much to those precious friends. What I’m trying to say, is those dreams were not my dreams, and as years rolled by, I was getting more and more uncomfortably comfortable. I wanted to jump off my own creative cliff, and find entities who would take the leap with me. This meant letting go of what I could control, the safe passage and the bankable.

Oftentimes in our everyday lives, we get lost in the doing of what we’re doing. Some of us are immeshed in the creative synergism, camaraderie, or the economics that drive it. For others, just surviving is motivation. At this point, we find it hard to see the forest for the trees and the bigger picture. So maybe, just maybe, we’re merely existing, opting for the familiar, a bit fearful of change, but actually impeding our potential for greater opportunities.

Well can these things we’re doing continue? Sure they can. Should they continue? That’s the better query.

There are many illustrations. For example, some personal relationships we have are in need of release. As much as we care for these people, they bring a toxicity to our lives. We feel it, try to ignore it, but it festers, and it’s destructive. Or too, when dealing with terminal patients, a family must come to a point of acceptance in order for them to let go..so in their hearts,, they can release their loved one to move on…to better things. There are businesses that keep holding on to operating modes that are inefficient, myopic and failing. They end up closing their doors, but really, they were dead long before. The blame is placed on many different things, but whatever it was, it also exposed what was inherently weak in both business processes and their product.

Dying to something is painful. It’s a wound that slowly heals, either completely or to a measure. But we have to let go of many things throughout our lives. In certain instances, holding on too long is just plain unhealthy.

“It’s a hard life
It’s a hard life
It’s a very hard life
It’s a hard life wherever you go”

So sang lovely songwriter, Nancy Griffith, who passed away this past August. It’s not easy, but it is what it is, and we have to come to grips with it.

Alcoholics Anonymous has a wonderful little saying…or is it a prayer? “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.

We’ve probably heard that many times, but I think it’s always worthy of review. Letting go…It’s the proverbial rite of passage as we find our way home.