I leave for India tomorrow.
I was supposed to leave last Thursday. And then this past Tuesday. And then the day after tomorrow. Now it’s tomorrow. Tomorrow it is.
I was supposed to write and edit a book chapter back in March. Then pushed it to April. May. Late May. Wrote through early June. Will finish it today. Has to be today.
Yet this morning, instead of setting down to edit, I began revamping this website.* Why? Rebelliousness? Lack of discipline? Divine inspiration? Perhaps a bit of all three, plus a dose of pragmatism. If you hadn’t heard, I leave tomorrow (used to be the day after tomorrow, but not anymore. Tomorrow it is). I plan to blog from abroad and will publicize this website’s presence to my network (677 friends on Facebook, 141 connections on LinkedIn, 814 spammers eager to promote chest fat loss and colon cleanses, among other gems).
So sometimes plans change — whether due to whim or necessity, sometimes plans change. And so I must go with the flow. My uptake of flow-going? Slow-going. Yesterday I fumed about my lack of control. Today I despair of this wrench in the work gears that I threw in myself.
Maybe that’s why I study the primary skills, basic competencies that help us remain agile in a digitally integrated, socially connected world of constant change. I may say that it’s for the children, but maybe what I’m really trying to do is save myself. Maybe that’s all that scholarship boils down to, oddballs’ attempts to figure out and fix themselves…
My mission is to internalize the lessons I teach, faithfully practice what I preach. I’d like to transition more gracefully, frame more positively, live more serenely, accepting and celebrating the flow, the now, the unexpected, the uncontrollable, as lately spoken of and consciously practiced by Krissy and Arian, Lindsay, Meg, Geetha, Sarah, Arvind, and my beloved mama.
India is the perfect place to embrace this challenge: birthplace of Buddhism, site of terrific tumult. This, and so many other reasons, make me lucky, so lucky… While I’m boarding a Lufthansa flight tomorrow (used to be Continental, then British Airways, but now it’s Lufthansa), I’m going with the flow today. And hopefully tomorrow… and the day after tomorrow… and the one after that…
*in sincere admiration/flagrant imitation of friend and esteemed colleague Lori Kido Lopez.