Vocation

As 2017 draws to a close, I thought I’d share the biggest thing it’s taught me:There are more answers than yes and no.

Okay, I already knew this, but 2017 has reaffirmed it.

2017 was the year I wanted to finally figure out exactly what I thought about everything in the world. This was going to be the year of “deep dives”.

I think there’s a lot of pressure to have an established worldview that can be applied flawlessly to any and all situations. I don’t have one. And, probably because college was sold to me as a magical time when a switch would flip, I feel like I should. So, all year, I’ve been working on pulling together something coherent.

I do know that such a thing probably doesn’t exist. I do know, that humans are wired to prefer cohesion and straight lines, but that the world is complex. I want one anyway.

Yet, after a year of thinking and assessing, it’s become obvious I don’t have a single worldview. My opinion changes case by case( ask me about the NFL today and again on Sunday and I’ll give completely different answers). That’s really frustrating to me. I like to achieve my goals and the inconsistency of my feelings makes me uncomfortable.I have spent a year trying to identify what my thoughts are around any given issue, what informs those thoughts and their implications.I’ve examined why I hold conflicting opinions and attempted to distinguish which is more reasonable, more universally applicable. It’s been exhausting. And I didn’t find the switch.

I now believe that I will never hold entirely complementary views. Our world is so boiled down to talking points, three minute videos,1000 word op-ed’s and loud noises that we forget how incapable those things are of capturing the true complexity of this beautiful mess of a  world we’ve been given. This year I have had the pleasure of learning more about myself and the world I walk in, recognizing and appreciating my inconsistencies. The pressure for everything we think and are to fit neatly in boxes we can check on some form is  tragic because it inhibits our ability to recognize that this is a “both..and” world. Complicated things are…complicated. They’re overwhelming. They may even take more than a year to figure out. But, they’re also exhilarating and worth muddling through.

I guess I’m really just rediscovering the essential truth of myself.My life is one of contradictions and gray spaces, I’ve never fit neatly in a checked box. I am, at my core, a “both..and” person. We probably all are. I’m going to let myself be that.