I needed this reminder this week – that I am the only one who can build my life. 

I choose to do what I do. 
I choose to put myself out there – teaching, lecturing, submitting manuscripts and grant proposals. 
For someone who is excessively introverted, this constant placing of the self in front of others – sharing what I have created, what I think is so critical and important, is so so hard. 

It is so hard. 

And yet. 

This is the life I want to build. I want the freedom to ask the questions that I want to answer. 
I want what I do to be driven by my passions, not someone else’s. 

This is my life. I only get one. 

If I don’t build it the way I want it, then, well, it’s not going to be a very fulfilling or happy life. 

Putting my work out there for feedback and (often) rejection is hard. 

The alternative, though, is that I would have to cross someone else’s bridge to build my life. 

I get to build this one. It’s a remarkable privilege, to have this freedom, these choices. 

It’s also a remarkable challenge. One that I need to rise to every single day, every single week. 

It’s been a crap week. Monday sucked. Tuesday was great. Wednesday, sucked. Thursday, meh. (It ended better than I thought it would, so that’s something?)

Friday I have more meetings than I thought possible. 
BUT. 

Then, for two days, my time is completely my own. I need this weekend to reset, recalibrate. 

I am so, so grateful for the privilege, the opportunity to build this life, this bridge, for myself. 

Wholeheartedness. There are many tenets of Wholeheartedness, but at its very core is vulnerability and worthiness; facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough.
– Brene Brown

Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.
– Brene Brown

And finally…

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill

So, am I allowed to change my word for the year? because everything in my life is now pointing to RISE… and less to SEEK.

The catalyst was last night, when I received a package from Barnes and Noble. I don’t order from B&N. It’s not that I don’t shop in their stores; I think I even have an account. But I could not remember ordering something – and since I never (or rarely) do, then I kind of figured I would remember it.

And there, in the package, was a book from one of my mentors and guides on this journey of life.

It is titled The Rise, and it is authored by Sarah Lewis. The subtitle? Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery. 

The gift of failure. I can’t tell you how that phrase spoke to me. In the last 3 years – since I left my first University position for one that was, quite frankly, a huge mistake, I have felt like a failure. I felt like I completely betrayed my values, my family, my goals, and my vision for my life. I felt as though I had failed in that first position, so I jumped rather than trying to figure out how to make it better – how to make it work for me.

And then I failed again.

And again when I took another job that wasn’t right for me.

I spent so much time denying who I was, and what I love, that I failed over and over and over again.

And then I realized, in the last 6 months, that I needed to have those failures, that I needed to go through those unimportant-to-everyone-else-but-important-to-me changes, crises, and shifts, to get where I am today.

And I am in the right place. At the right time. Doing the right things. I have affirmation of that every single day. Both within me – in the deepening sense of contentment that I am in the right place at the right time – and from others, who are immensely supportive of and enthusiastic about what I am doing.

I am rising.
I am strong.
I am taking back my life.
Moving forward.

So while I am still seeking, I’d like to think that for now – for this year, 2019 – I am rising.
I am rising from those failures, and moving on.