Sitting in a cafe, off 7th Avenue in Manhattan, I remember one of the things I loved about living in this city — the simple pleasure of watching the world pass by outside with a well-made coffee nearby.
On this trip, and often this year, my mind has been drawn back to the idea of Choice.
Some of us perceive that life is at least partially in our control, many of us experience life as if it happens to us… good or bad. Personally, I believe both world views are valid, and also, ultimately a choice of the viewer.
To illustrate, when I choose to view the Universe, on a macro level, as a benevolent, abundant and magical place, it tends to show up that way in both large and small ways.
Less than a year shy of my 40th birthday, this has not been the primary mode in which I’ve chosen to experience life. Most of my adult life, especially in my twenties and early thirties, was plagued by feelings of lack, being a cog in an ‘unfair’ system, etc. I felt as if I was playing a zero sum game, and perpetually losing. And of course, the situations I found myself in only re-iterated that sense.
But in the past few years, I can pinpoint it down to another New York trip — after I had left the city for Texas during covid. An advisor shared with me the concept of surrendering to the outcome, when I was bemoaning what to do with my last company. This concept was so foreign to me, someone who had ‘white-knuckled it’ through most of my life from eary teens on, that it took months to fully land. But I was also at some a point of exhaustion, and fatigue, that I was almost forced into surrender — I just had no more fight left.
So as a bibliophile does, I began to read… all the books I could find on letting go, on surrendering, on ‘surfing’ through reality. Many rung hokey, but even in the corniest prose, ideas rang true — the core being that we get to Choose in this life.
In the last 2 years and change since that realization my life — and my enjoyment of it — has transformed. When I chose to surrender, and to trust (without any guarantees) that things would work out for the best the following happened over a 24-36 month period:
- I was offered a great role, at a former competitor, that gave me the mental and financial buffer to re-assess what I wanted professionally
- My company, Avra, sold to a great acquirer in the midst of the worst time for recruiting companies in ages
- I joined a fund where I have been lucky to learn a ton about the finance side of business — a critical piece missing from my entrepreneurial ‘toolkit’
- The ‘prickliness’ that I have approached most adult relationships with has subsided, I am able to interact with people, be it my barista, or a romantic partner, sans the layers of ‘protection’ I had built up over the years.