By: Gabriela Yareliz
I know someone (who I admire) who is almost 80 and refuses to retire. Now, I do think this person has a sense of calling and vocation. They love what they do. But this brought me to thinking— how many of us are on track to do the same because we fail to have an identity or grow outside of work/responsibility. Have we forgotten who we are because we are a piece of a machine? I see it in myself and those around me. No breaks.
Some people naturally have close people who show them a rich life outside of work and responsibility, and others don’t and need to find an example of this to figure out how to live it out. We are all tasked with finding it and paying attention.
And this isn’t even about taking vacations (though that is a small piece of it). One can’t live life from vacation to vacation. I am talking about daily living where you cultivate a rich life of creativity and variety outside of work. Where, if you have a paralyzing accident today (God forbid), you weren’t putting leisure off to some future unpromised time that never comes. Hilariously, we see the putting off of joy and creativity as responsible. It’s not. It’s wasteful and presumptuous.
This is one of my goals. I want to cultivate an identity outside of responsibility. What does that look like? I don’t know, but the wisest people do it. We don’t get this time back. This is the phrase that keeps swirling in my head like a full sink swirling around the drain.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 