The Days of Change and Promise.

tyunglebower ♦ March 25, 2012 ♦ 2 Comments

Scintilla Bonus Prompt: What is it that you’re sure you’ll never forget about being this age?

We all have epochs and eras in our lives. Despite the fact that on some fundamental level I have felt the same at every age, (weird, I know) I am no exception to this tendency. And I am in the early stages of a new section of my life. Not because of my age, which I think is mostly just a number. Rather because of the activities, plans, and perceptions I have formed over the last three years or so. (When you’re an adult, I think any given collection of three or four years falls into the same “age” in my book.)

I’ll always remember this time of my life because of several paradigm shifts.

There is the shift in the way I relate to people. Always and forever introverted and quiet, in the last few years I’ve learned to no longer allow that to be a disadvantage. To instead engage the world and the people in it in ways that gel the best with my natural temperaments while still leaving room for improvement of my weaknesses.

A shift has also occurred in the last three years or so in how I pursue my career. For while there will always be a temptation to compare my progress to that of my colleagues, I have at least carved out a place where it is not only acceptable but logical to proceed both at my own pace and according to my own road map, when it comes to my own definition of success. To be sure, there are certain rules to be followed, but in so following I can (and will) be more of an individual on a journey, as opposed to a guy tying to assimilate into someone else’s career system.

Finally, during this age, there was a tangible, though indescribable shift in the nature of my writing. I have always written, and I have always been, if I may say so, better at it than most of my contemporaries at any given time. Yet it was during this general section of my life that I not only made a specific dedication to deepen my craft, but when I sensed a particular change in the potency of my writing.

I don’t know if it would be detectable yet to an outsider reading my writing over the same period, but internally about three years ago it felt as though I had achieved a certain experience level in composing prose which catapalted me to the next step in an endless staircase of improvement all writers should climb. A “power-up” to use video game parlance.  In many ways, that was the catalyst for all of the other shifts I have mentioned in this post.

There are other reasons why I will never forget being this particular age. Yet I chose to write about these three because it is these three shifts that will make this time in my life unforgettable, when the day comes to asses these days of change and promise.