{"id":1991,"date":"2020-05-03T10:15:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T10:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carolhollandmarch.com\/?p=1991"},"modified":"2020-05-03T10:15:15","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T10:15:15","slug":"what-do-you-want-to-have-to-do-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolhollandmarch.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/03\/what-do-you-want-to-have-to-do-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do You Want to Have, To Do, To Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A good question, posed in a graduate social psychology class, and an eye-opener for me.<\/p>\n

I had recently moved from Philadelphia to California to escape an abusive relationship. What I wanted for the past year was crystal clear. Get my affairs in order, plan the move, and get out of town without my partner\u2019s knowledge. That mission was accomplished. I left my job, shipped my belongings to storage, and drove cross country in my Toyota hatchback. Without an address or a deadline, I never felt so free.<\/p>\n

After I found an apartment and settled in, grad school was my first attempt at reinventing myself. I had been a vocational counselor, a humdrum job in a shabby bureaucratic system, but given the volatility of my personal life, it worked because it was safe and easy.<\/p>\n

Entering school again did not answer the question, what do you want to be?\u00a0 Keeping my options open, I soaked up the information offered, acquired organizational and leadership skills, and figured it out as I went along. That was just the external, though.\u00a0 Inside, quietly, I knew I\u00a0was a writer.<\/p>\n

I wanted to tell stories, maybe write novels.\u00a0The kernel of the novel I would eventually write was already swirling in my mind.\u00a0Finally, I had the time and opportunity to write, which I did, but sporadically.\u00a0School work, extracurricular activities, and jobs pushed creative writing lower on the list of priorities.<\/p>\n

Later, I worked in corporate communications and training, and free lanced as an editor and ghost writer.\u00a0The novel grew in fits and starts.\u00a0I took creative writing classes and got positive feedback, but my confidence didn\u2019t grow.\u00a0I compared myself unfavorably to everyone \u2014 other students, teachers, published writers I admired.<\/p>\n

Suffering from residual childhood trauma, I didn\u2019t realize how deeply I\u2019d been affected by the paralyzing fear of my early years. I knew something was wrong, but not what. Resistance offered opportunities to heal my wounds. Many I missed, but occasionally, patterns were too blatant to ignore. I started reading metaphysics and eastern philosophy, and began changing my ingrained, negative beliefs. Still, resistance plagued me<\/p>\n

What I wanted to have was the easy one<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0Material possessions never meant much, but I wanted a decent place to live, a car I liked, enough money to pay my bills and support my writing habit.<\/p>\n

What I wanted to do never changed.<\/strong><\/span> To communicate. I loved working with people, helping them move through transitions in their lives. I began to teach. I always wrote, and eventually finished the novel. Wrote short stories. Took writing workshops. Joined groups.<\/p>\n

What I wanted to be was not about career.<\/strong><\/span> As a career counselor and coach, I worked with people unhappy in their jobs, who wanted to express themselves in new ways.\u00a0I saw myself as a motivator, a facilitator, a cheerleader.\u00a0I loved watching my clients and students grow into new understanding.\u00a0But as time went on, my work identity took second place to a growing search for my spiritual identity.<\/p>\n

Now, in 2020,<\/em><\/strong><\/span> as we look out in horror at the pandemic ravaging the world, staying safe in our homes if we\u2019re lucky, and wondering about the future, these questions re-emerge.<\/p>\n