I’m in the way
I’m in the way
I’m in the precious belonging of day
—Julia Holter
It is cliche to say we can’t get out of our own way sometimes. Like many cliches, however, this one started off as truth, then grew so polished from years of use that it became slippery and useless, not rough enough for honest trade.
Our days can become like that, too—too smooth, too predictable for honest living. What is more likely to do us in than the unexpected countenance of fresh interference is the sameness of days. Crises and obstacles—a concerning diagnosis, an unreturned phone call, or, more commonly, the daily messiness of life—restore a certain scratchiness that rouses us and can summon the best and most we have to give. Courage. Patience. Resolve.
Conversely, the sameness of days can lull us into forgetting who we are, and more important, who we are at our very best. It’s a polishing that dulls rather than shines. That’s when we can’t get out of our own way, but it’s more than that: In blocking the doorway to the uncontrolled, we block everything else, too.
This is not to wish for a devastating medical test result or the continuation of a strained relationship, or a steady rain of troubled days. It is merely to say that a minor-league mixing up of things is sometimes called for. Nor is it to endorse the now much-maligned tech bros’ mantra, “Move fast and break things.” Life by its nature is largely moving parts. Rather, move instead of sitting still, but at your own speed. Shift the already broken pieces around to see if a different jigsaw puzzle comes into view.
The unplanned and the unplanned for, the uncontrolled and the uncontrollable—too often these are seen only as enemies, when it might just be that in these moments the universe has come a-callin’. If our goal is for every day to be exactly what we planned, how will serendipity ever find us?