60 Weeks to 60 — Weeks 15–20: Reinventing Reinventing Oneself
Over the past few weeks I have been traveling, including two weeks in South Africa for work and two weeks in France for vacation. This week’s entry is a summary of some of my insights on reinvention during this time.
__________
- Why am I doing this?
My decision to blog about my 60 Weeks to 60 project is a way to reinforce my commitment to this endeavor. In fact, I’m not sure if I would have continued week after week without this public commitment.
However, when I was traveling, especially when I was teaching in S. Africa, it would have been really challenging to add one more responsibility to my plate. And, when I was on vacation, I really wanted to give myself a full break from all of my responsibilities.
But, I felt guilty… Who was I letting down — myself or others? It was surprisingly difficult to distinguish between the two. I realized that by making my commitment to this project public, and by posting my experiences online, I invited the outside world into my life in a very intimate way. On the plus side, public posting reinforced my commitment to the project, but it also changed the type of challenges I was willing to undertake.
I realized that there are many projects/challenges that I want/need to explore that I don’t want to share publicly — at least for now. Therefore, by allowing myself to take a break, I reminded myself that this project is essentially for me. I will be sharing the parts that feel appropriate, using the public posting to reinforce my commitment, while making room for challenges that are just for me. Also, if I really want to take a break to reflect on the entire process, I will give myself room for that, too.
2. Reinvention is hard at any age
During my vacation in France, I had lots of time to consider what I might want to do in the next chapter of my life. At the moment, there isn’t any urgency to make any changes since I have a terrific job and wonderful colleagues.
But, a great job and colleagues is also a very comfortable trap. Why would anyone ever do anything different? And that is the rub!
When I was younger, I changed my career — not just my job — about every two years. Each transition allowed me to leave a role that didn’t quite fit for something that provided a brand new set of possibilities. As a result, I gained a tremendous range of motion in my skill set. I had to be nimble and to learn quickly as I shifted my roles from scientist to project manager to management consultant to author to multimedia producer to entrepreneur to educator. Each one of these roles added to my tool box.
The big question is, “Do I continue going deep in my area of expertise, or use the next chapters to do something completely different?”
It is always easy to continue playing the same role when it’s comfortable — like wearing a broken-in pair of boots. However, what would happen, and where would you go, if you put on a new pair of shoes? What about switching them out with sneakers, sandals, or high heels?
The 60 Weeks to 60 project is my invitation to myself to do this… It is up to me to give myself challenges that force me to put on a different pair of “shoes.” In the coming weeks, I plan to create challenges that stretch me even more than those in the first 20 weeks.
3. Back to the Future
Six years ago, my book What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 was released. It was a essentially a letter to my son Josh as he was going off to college. I revisited the book to see what advice I gave him about uncertainty, and decided to share the final paragraphs of the book here… Although I wrote this for others, it is just as important for me to remind myself:
In looking for inspiration for this book, I literally and figuratively opened every drawer and looked into every closet of my life. In the process, I stumbled upon a canvas bag I’ve been dragging around for thirty years. The two-foot-long bag is filled with “treasures” that seemed important to me over the years. When I was twenty, this bag was one of my few possessions. I carried it with me from college to graduate school and everywhere I’ve lived since. Though I rarely open it, I always know where to find it. The bag and its contents are a tangible link to my past.
When I opened the bag, I found a small collection of unremarkable rocks and shells from far-off beaches, faded photo IDs dating back through my years of high school and college, a stack of old letters, and some of my early “inventions,” including prototyped LED jewelry that I crafted out of modeling clay and watch batteries. I also found a small notebook of poetry, titled “Experimental Artifacts.”
When I wrote the poems in this book they represented the flip side of the organized scientific experiments I was performing in my neuroscience lab while in graduate school. One of the poems, called “Entropy,” jumped out at me. This poem is about the process of constantly reinventing oneself, of always changing the game plan, and taking risks without knowing what will happen. I wrote that poem in September 1983, exactly twenty-five years ago. At that time, the future was murky, filled with vast uncertainty because I couldn’t see very far into the future. Twenty-five years later I see it differently. Uncertainty is the essence of life, and it fuels opportunity. To be honest, there are still days when I’m not sure which road to take and am overwhelmed by the choices unfolding in front of me. But I now know that uncertainty is the fire that sparks innovation and the engine that drives us forward.
So, here’s to uncertainty and to unending reinvention!
