Letter #47 - Being a Work-In-Progress

To anyone who feels incomplete,

I was thinking about being complete, the other day. When we think of our futures, don’t most of us think that at some point we’ll be done, settled and our lives will be complete? There’s this idea that you’re doing to reach a point where you don’t need to do or be more. I know when I was young, I thought that 40 was the end of the road, and that I had to complete everything on my bucket list by then or else life would have been pointless. Saying that now, it just seems silly yet at the same time, a part of me has those worries.

I look at myself at 24, and this is not what I pictured for myself but it’s not a bad life and I’m still working towards the things I pictured. But I am very much a work in progress. I’m not finished with my goals, not by a long shot! I can see myself having to be a work in progress for the rest of my life and I’ve only just now thought of how that’s entirely okay. 

To me, being a work in progress means having new ideas and making changes in your life, because if you stay still for too long, that doesn’t necessarily make you complete, more likely just unfinished. And I don’t ever want to be unfinished.

I think that trying new things, travelling, working, exploring yourself and your life, all lead to self improvement and that’s progress in a positive direction. It’s progress that you can always work on and work towards. As long as I’m trying to achieve something, or better myself, I’m going to keep moving forward toward that feeling of “being complete”. Yet, I will never be complete until I decide that I am.

Life isn’t still - if it was, it’d be really boring - and so doing things and having goals is what makes life interesting. It’s what gives life life. With this idea, being a work in progress, being incomplete in your life’s journey is part of the fun. If we stress less about what hasn’t happened and instead see it as things to look forward to, things that are going to happen at some point, then life would be so much more fun. It would be an adventure.

So that’s the conclusion I’ve come to; I’m fine with being a work in progress until I decide that I’m done and that feeling of contentment and decision will be when I’m complete. That’s totally fine with me. It will be my choice and on my terms, without some imagined finish line that has to match anyone else’s.

I hope that you can join me in seeing life this way, with an excitement for the unfinished nature of life and all the adventures that are yet to come.

Until next time, be inspired...

Z