New starts, old origins

“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

I was packing my suitcase in Melbourne, trying to decide what I might need in my cabin bag for the connection time at Cathy Pacific’s hub when I had a sudden thought. British citizens don’t need a visa to enter Hong Kong, do they? A quick Google check later and a tedious wait in a stuffy lounge became a spontaneous twelve-hour exploration of incense-laced temples and sampan filled harbours.

But when did that day really start? Was it only when we were wheels down at Chek Lap Kok island? Or when I stood folding trousers in the Pan Pacific? Or when I quickly decided to fly to Australia to speak at a conference on Judicial stress? Or when I was thirteen and gazed longingly at the photos my friend Rebecca had taken of Kowloon on her immigrant journey from her home in Iran Jaya? Or was it even earlier, when Rebecca’s adoptive mother, Margaret, took the decision to take a child without a family into her heart? Or the unknown moment when something prompted Margaret to set off on a transcontinental journey of her own?

It’s the same with our careers and creativity. Is the start the day we launch our website for our new business? Is the first brush stroke on a canvas, the first word typed into a Scrivener file the true start of our work? Or does the true start go right back to our childhood loves and influences and beyond that to the constellations of decisions and choices of others who created the world into which we were born?

It is so tempting to see starts only as a thing of this moment. To view them purely as a single significant marker in time in which everything will, finally, begin to be the way we hope. Thoughts of cleanness, freshness, and newly turned leaves cause us to breathe deep and easy. We imagine perfect days to follow. The stench of our rotting mistakes and wasted days will be banished by the scent of lemon polish, newly printed book pages and just-mown grass.

Starts seen as clean sweeps are a gift indeed. They bring hope and lightness. Excitement. Promise and purpose. This time, we tell ourselves, this time will be when life becomes how I want it to be. And yet, loading them with such import means they also come with a compost of angst-making under-thoughts. I must get it perfect. I can’t begin until I am sure when I want to be in five years’ time, ten years time, for the rest of my life. I only have one chance to debut, I can’t waste it being mediocre.

Or in my case: This is my big career change. I have to know deep down in my soul for sure - really for sure- what is the right path because I don’t have the years left to take a long wrong turn. Or to translate the existential angst to the practical: I can’t begin a Substack because I can’t think of the absolutely perfect subtitle that encapsulates everything I may grow into. (Even when we know these thoughts to be untrue they still plague us.)

If we approach starts as constantly available do-overs, it takes the sting out of that pressure. If they are only of the moment, then many new moments will follow. Messed up? Failure is just another word for success. You just start again. no worries mate. And yet, if we view starts only as disposable attempts, they come with an anxiety-producing flimsiness. Nothing feels lasting or momentous. No decision has a gravitas on which we can build motivation and commitment. Legacy is hard to build on a constantly shifting sand.

But if we see starts as being both of the moment and simultaneously as having roots that trail back through all the days of our lives and far outside of ourselves, then we have access to both the grace to accept meanderings and the stability to grow high.

I have entitled this new Substack as Encore because I want to take a look at creativity through the (fairly wide-angled) lens of adopting it as the core of a new vocation. The term ‘encore career’ was coined by Marc Freedman in his 2007 book Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life. He typifies such work as being dominated by social impact and personal fulfilment rather than economic benefits. ‘Career’ doesn’t quite feel like the right word for what I am embarking on, for these years of delving deep into my creative powers and finding out how the results might trickle out as a gift to the world. It feels too structured somehow, too redolent of travelling a path well defined by others. Vocation, with its implication of answering a ‘calling, of walking out into the unknown, feels, more apt for me. but either word, or indeed an entirely different word, might suit you.

That said, I find that I have much I want to say about what we think ‘work’ is, about how we decide what matters, about the true nature of impact and fulfilment and about how we view our purpose in our second-half years. Primarily, though I want to write about the daily making of a new lifestyle. How do we come to the decision that propels us forward in a very new direction? What is it like to take a sharp turn and then to pave that new road? What are the joys, the surprises, the challenges and the rewards of living a mature life filled to the gills with creativity?

I bring a little expertise to the endeavour, being a trained coach. I bring a little life experience from my own Encore Journey of moving from being a Judge to creating life as an artist and writer. But mostly I bring curiosity and a toddler-like instinct to hold up the flowers and the stones and say with fascination Look! Look what I found by the roadside! I am writing this to find out and to make sense of as much as to report. To document as much as to share. To fill my days with the joyous processes of noting, contemplating and writing

This is my journey but I invite you along and welcome your responses and comments. If you are ahead of me, please send sit reps from the viewpoints to me and my readers. If you are behind me, here is my hand, feel free to take it on the stumbly parts of your walk or to shout up that I missed something important and should come back to see what you found.

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To ponder if you are contemplating a new start:

How far back and how wide out can you trace the origins of your new start?

How impactful might your choice be today be in the future as a link to someone else’s new start?

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Creativity tapas: Little things for you to snack on

New things in my life this week:

I have just been to Cornwall where I spent a lot of time recharging by looking at harbours and the sea. I bought this piece of art from John Button from this gallery. He has plenty more if you like this one too!

I was introduced to this musician for the first time when his lovely wife contacted me..

I found this article with many inspiring stories of people doing all manner of new things for the first time after turning sixty.

I joined a new bookclub that supports the charity Shelterbox and am enjoying my first read from author Nicole Dennis-Benn

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And finally…a blessing.

Thank you for reading. I value your time.

May you experience today both pools of calm peaceful moments and waves of change and challenge. May you sail forth in adventure on a running tide of excitement and return home on the slack tide with your catches to contemplate and find your rest.

Shalom,

Helen