A World of Obligations vs. A World of Possibilities

I think I was probably really annoying in my 20s. Recently divorced from a disastrous “starter marriage” that lasted less than three years, I was working at a job I loved, with people I adored, that challenged me intellectually every day, living in an apartment I loved with a balanced social life. I skied, I walked and in my “spare time” I took a screenwriting class and started writing a novel.

One day, I was in the elevator heading up to my office when a very cute guy stepped in just as the doors were closing. We flirted all the way to the 9th floor. About 2:00 that afternoon, our receptionist called me. “Ah,” she said, “some guy just left something for you.”

“On my way,” I said. 

Sitting at reception was a large frozen yogurt with a note that said: “a little something to sweeten your day.” Later, he called and asked me on a date. We went out several times before discovering that we had nothing in common other than the building in which we both worked.

But that experience led to something I said over and over again until I’m certain it became really annoying. “It is a world of possibilities.” When a friend would complain about their job or their love life, I would often reply, “it’s a world of possibilities, if you want to make a change, make a change.” I believed in the power to chart your own course, take chances and discover new things. And I felt that way for years. I felt that way when Eric and I met. I felt that way when we moved from the city to the Hamptons and launched our first business. 

Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I truly believed – I felt – that it was a world of possibilities. And then the business failed, and failed hard. And we had a baby. And started a new business. And adopted a baby. And the water heater broke and we didn’t have the money to fix it. And then we were starting a new business and I was practicing law part-time and we had kids and all of a sudden, without even noticing that it was happening, I stopped feeling like it was a world of possibility and began to feel like it was a world of obligations.

These days, I swing hard between those two feelings. There are many days when the to-do list is too long, the obligations too many and the reality of my limited time on this earth too much. And then there are other days, when I recognize my power to put things on that to-do list (or not), to choose the obligations to which I commit. And, while there’s not too much I can do about the ever-shrinking sand in the hourglass of my life, I can remind myself that, as long as there is breath in my lungs, there are possibilities around every corner.