Book #1: Becoming Wise (An Introduction)

I have a lot more ideas about life than wisdom earned from lived experience.

I am a 23-year-old woman fresh out of college, and from what I can tell, I’m pretty sure that my twenties are the awkward stage for my brain that my teens were for my body. Instead of feeling like my acne-ridden, stretched out body doesn’t fit right, it’s my grandiose expectations that don’t match reality. Instead of crying because of a pimple that sits beaming on the tip of my nose (although those still happen), I break down because I want so badly for everything to fall into place now.

Commence adult puberty.

I’m reminded of something my high school teacher told me one time; “One day, you’re going to wake up and realize that you’re not actually going to be famous. And you might panic. But then it will be okay.”

Forever believing myself to be better adjusted than I am (a really helpful character trait of mine), I remember hearing that and rolling my eyes. I didn’t think that I was going to be famous. I’m a grownup for god sakes.

But I did. I totally did. And I found out I did when the rocket-ship that was going to shoot me off on a clear path of success and fortune never showed up. Again and again and again, it never showed up.

So I’m left with myself. And I sometimes need a reminder that despite the lack of fame and fortune, that’s no small thing. I’ve worked for the person that I am today. Although I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t have a fancy job, I am proud of and confident in the values and ideas and people that weave my life together. This feels like a more important toolset to have than money and a fancy lifestyle.

And having this toolset lets me ask more interesting questions than “how do I pay my electric bill and buy that special coconut peanut butter I love?” Although that’s a very important question to ask myself, life wouldn’t be worth living if that’s all I’m worried about.

So, the questions that interest me in this current phase of adult mind puberty are all about edges. What happens when my rocket-ship expectations meet the butter-knife dullness of everyday making-ends-meet activity?

How do I decide who to be when my own fear threatens the livelihood of kindness?

How can I put less hurt in the world?

How will the specificity of my own experience influence the way I answer these questions? How can I make that less limiting?

These questions require a quiet, safe, analytical, and compassionate place to live. Otherwise, I might turn into a blowhard. And blowhards are the worst. Krista Tippett shows us how to live from this tender place of holding space for questions with no easy answers.

Alright, I know it’s taken me awhile to get to it, but this is where Becoming Wise; An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living comes in.

Tippett gives us conversations with people who are out in the world showing us what it looks like when we marry our ideas and intentions not with our egos but with the real world. These are people who are creating the Beloved Community.

That’s where I’ll pick up in the next post.