I’m at this weird age where the pressure to get it right is immense. You know, you have to make the right choices. Show up every day. Be consistent. Never be afraid. Take risks. Put yourself out there. Be motivated. Confident. Read. And then read some more. Be productive with your time. And a thousand other prescriptions for success.
All of which is really good advice and should be taken. But for those of you that are messy like me; those of you who get it wrong a lot… as in a lot- I’m talking bad decision after bad decision; those of you who are sometimes too tired, too demotivated, too off to do anything; those of you who sometimes know what and why you ought to do it but cannot find the energy to do so; those of you who do not read as much as you should or are sometimes not as productive; those of you who are still confused about where, what and who you want to be; those of you who are not always confident, not always secure within yourselves; those of you who are still all over the place with it, please know now and always that there’s a place for us too, that there’s still a chance for us.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not excusing any of these traits nor am I advocating that we harbor them. I’m not endorsing any of them. We’ve got to do better, to be better. But that’s just the thing: everybody’s got something they ought to work on. Ours just happens to be this at this very time. And there’s nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with us. There’s nothing wrong with us. We are just finding our way through the maze. Perhaps at a slower pace than everyone else, but maybe that’s fast enough for us. Maybe that’s the pace we ought to go at. The people who are in the positions we wish to be were in these very spots. How much more hopeful should we then be that we too are going to make it?
The point is that in a world that glorifies instant gratification, that is apt to glorifying “having it all figured out”, that shows the glit but never the muck preceding it, that spotlights the end product but never the way there, that dehumanizes the “process” and takes all the messiness out of it, it’s okay to be human, to not have it figured out right now, to be messy. It’s okay to still be struggling with a lot of things. It’s okay to not be exactly where you wish to be. Do not feel the pressure to pretend otherwise.
I think something that we, the messies(that’s what I’m calling us) ought to internalize before anything else is the uniqueness of our stories. Though the circumstances themselves are not, the combination of them is specific to each of us. The hurdles along the way can never be the same. Thus it only makes sense that we each get there at different paces, for we are navigating distinct paths. The beauty of it all is that the table is large enough for all of us to sit at. And the way God designed it, each of our seats is tailor-made, made to measure, made specifically for each of us so that nobody could ever take my place or yours. There’s doors with our names engraved on them that only we can open through which no one else can walk through. And every step of this journey is meant to mold you to sit in that seat, to fit in through that door.
Is it not then imperative that we live through every step of the process so that we are rightly shaped? Is it is not vital that we take our time with it? The beauty of it all is that our places are reserved for us, are awaiting us. And we’ll get there when we get there. We just have to put in the work and be intentional about it all. And Heaven will be our guide.
So steady pace, kid. Steady pace. We’ll make it. I fully believe that.
Love,
-A fellow messy.