more like overlapping stages that, once begun, continue for
the rest of your life. For example, once you learn the
discipline of awareness, you continue to practice this
throughout your apprenticeship, continually looking for
guidance along the way. The same is true for practice—it’s
something you keep doing long after you acquire a skill.
There is a process to finding your life’s work. Although
at first it may feel chaotic, there is an order emerging from
such chaos. And if you commit to following these stages,
paying attention along the way and persevering, you will
have something rare, something you can be proud of.
Letting Go of What Could
Have Been
“Part of people’s problem is they think of everything that
could’ve been,” Eric Miller told me after his son left our
phone conversation. “Who cares what the future might’ve
been for Garrett? It doesn’t matter. It can’t be. This is where
we’re at, and this is where we’re going.”
In his voice, I could hear the military stoicism that
must’ve served him well while dealing with more than a
decade of raising a special needs child, not to mention
during his career as a paramedic and nurse. He went on to
tell me about his subsequent divorce and confessed that