Thursday, November 1, 2012

Live the Question

Even though I've spent so many years dreaming about the days "when I get better..." I'm still at a loss at how to finish that sentence.

I could make this a long drawn out post about how I'm weighing options of alternative health care jobs or going back to school for other degrees. Or I could talk a lot about how I'm thinking of ways to start small, like volunteer, before I choose a direction. Or I could share how Neil and I have actually made an NCAA-like tournament bracket of possible job options.

But what I really want to say today is much more simple. Its a pep-talk for me as much as I hope it might resonate for you in some way. Its a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke and it is on constant repeat for me these days because the blank slate in front of us starts to bring up so many questions: What will I do next? How much can my brain handle? Where will we live? etc, etc

I just go back to this quote and remember that this time doesn't need to be overwhelming and scary (a territory so easily ventured into, isn't it?) - this time can be exciting and full of wonder.

All those things I can't answer right now, its okay. Its okay to live in the question.
…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903

in Letters to a Young Poet

3 comments:

  1. I LOVE that quote -- it's beautiful and perfect. Life isn't simple, so of course coming up with the big answers won't be. I'll have to keep that mindset over the next several months too :)

    PS -- any interest in a cardigans-and-sweaters type of night tomorrow while our gentlemen go check out some basketball? I miss you!

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    1. That sounds like an ideal evening. I'm staying in, feeling mopey cause I have to pass on the Pitt tickets (it's too much right now) and so seeing you but still laying low would cheer me up so much!

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    2. He's awesome, isn't he? That whole book turns my world upside down in a good way.

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