I read an excellent article by Karen Nimmo, a clinical psychologist, the other day. The article was stating that we make a big (while well-intentioned) mistake by telling our young adult kids that we just want them to be happy and do what they are passionate about. Nimmo says that kids will look around the world and see that very few adults are great examples of that over-simplified formula for life satisfaction. In an already confused and sometimes even panicked state of trying to figure out their next steps into their burgeoning adulthoods, this “just be happy and do your passions” sometimes just adds more anxiety and frustration to their psyches.
I thought to myself, as my empty nest stage is a few short months around the corner, if someone told me to “just be happy and to live my passions” in this new stage of my life, I might want to hit that person. Life isn’t that simple. Sometimes we’re happy. Sometimes we’re not. Sometimes we know our passions and sometimes we don’t. What once made us passionate, can lose its luster, and many times our passions remain elusive.
Nimmo says that a healthier thing to say to our young adult children is this:
“I want you to get to know yourself. To keep it real. To understand that sh*t happens to everyone. And to have skills to deal with it when it does.”
The above statement is a lifelong process, isn’t it? Perhaps that is the biggest adventure and opportunity of each of our lives – the pathway to getting to know our own selves and to have the skills to deal with life’s surprises, and ups and downs, along this pathway.
In support of Nimmo’s statement above that she advises us to tell our kids (and perhaps ourselves at any new stage of our lives), she recommends several reminders and hints that make that goal such a good one:
First, she says, remember that you don’t need “a grand plan.” Very few people have such clarity of purpose at a young age (or at any new stage in life) and Nimmo reminds us that a lot of the fun in life, is not knowing where it’s headed. She says to follow your curiosities. These experiences may lead to your passions, but even if they don’t, they’ll add to your life’s knowledge base and they’ll broaden your perspectives. Nimmo also reminds us that a single decision isn’t going to shape your life. Don’t overthink it. We get something from every path we have taken in our lives. There are lessons gained from every kind of experience we have in life, even the ones which we deem to be negative. Nimmo ends her thoughts with these ideas: Put your whole heart and fully engage with everything that you do. Make sure you have fun along the way, and “keep topping up your tank” with self-care, so that you can do all of the above, with your best and fullest abilities.
It’s not lost on me, that at my stage of life of trying to guide and support my children into the beginning stages of their own adult lives, I am also taking baby steps into a new stage of my own life. Isn’t the Universe brilliant? As we know, we are all the children of the Universe and the lessons of life always apply to every single one of us. As we guide, we are being guided. Maybe this truth about life (Guide and be guided.) is easier to understand, digest, and live, than “Be happy and live your passions.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.