#1: A first of many.

On-time bloomers.

Hello people I love most in this world,

If you know me, you know how much I love reading, thinking, writing and listening to podcasts. A natural habit of mine is to send podcast episodes or random quotes to friends as I listen to them and am reminded of conversations that we’ve had or questions that the people in my life are currently grappling with.

So I decided to start a newsletter. Every Thursday at 1pm EDT, you will get a newsletter from me with the podcast excerpts that have pushed me to think differently, the quotes that have most resonated, the questions that I am contemplating and anything else that comes up overtime. Please opt in or opt out as you wish. My intention here is to share resources that are helpful FOR YOU so if this does not resonate, feel free to share it with someone else and do not feel obligated stick around.

And lastly, please respond to these emails with your own recommendations! I will read/listen and perhaps feature in the next newsletter to share the love with all of you. I want this to feel like a fun, brainy & zany community and bookclub.

I am very excited about this and thank you for following along!

Without further ado, here is the first newsletter:

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On-Time Bloomer

Part of the impetus for starting this newsletter stemmed from a piece that I wrote called “In Defense of the Late Bloomer.” And I actually planned to send that as my first newsletter. But then I had a conversation that made me rethink the entire concept.

Implicit within the term “late bloomer” is the feeling of being behind, wrong, misunderstood. What I had initially been arguing is that late bloomers tend to fend better for themselves in the long run. I argued that they had higher rates of overall life satisfaction because they were able to maintain motivation for their genuine desires without rushing to arrive at some arbitrary and externalized definition of success. I still stand by that notion; however, I don’t think that makes someone a late bloomer. I think that makes them a right on-time bloomer. So I have adapted my thinking and this argument to incorporate this newfound information (thank you, John, for the convo!!!).

My grandpa often reminded me of a piece of wisdom from the Big Book, in asserting that, “There is nothing to be discovered, only more to be revealed.” It’s easy to go about life waiting for your dreams and visions to be revealed to you in a diorama as tangible and clear as the dollhouse that Matty makes Jenna in 13 Going on 30.

But in reality, I have come to think that life operates very differently than that. I used to shy away from the question of “what’s your dream for your future?” or “if you could have any career, what would it be?” Those types of questions feel overwhelming at any age but particularly when you are young and have limited life experience to draw upon.

What was so beautiful about this conversation with John that changed my “late bloomer” thinking, is that he shared with me that his life has been pretty damn remarkable for the past 26 years. That’s not to say it’s been perfect or free of suffering. But rather, the amalgamation of all of the good and the bad, the blissful highs of self-discovery and bottomless pits of despair, have given him more in 26 years than he could ask for in a lifetime. So he trusts that the pattern will keep repeating. If he stays open, curious, driven by intrinsic desire and in touch with his intuition above all societal expectations, why does he need to have a venture-capital-ready pitch for what he wants to do with his future? Why can’t his answer to this question be exactly what I just described? Why can’t he just confidently say, I don’t know but I sure as hell can’t wait to find out? And in hearing him say all of this, I realized that not having a perfectly blossomed vision of your future does not make you a late bloomer, but rather an on-time one.

It sounds simple, but it forever changed the way that I will navigate these conversations both with other people and, most importantly, with myself. I spend a lot of time talking to imaginary life-interviewers who sit on my shoulders, pen and paper in hand, as though they are preparing to write my memoir. It’s easy to get caught up in life-forecasting in pursuit of answering these big questions, especially because we are socialized to ask them in gatherings of all sorts. But reframing my thinking on the “late bloomer” argument reminded me of one of my favorite mindfulness tools that I grab when I feel like I am trapped in future-track-mind. I got it from my incredible coach, Kat McGee, and it’s called… “shorten your stick.”

Shorten Your Stick

What would your rather sweep your house with? A long, flimsy broom with an inefficient reach, or a short and well-directed broom that is more attune and precise to the direction that you want to sweep? I’m going to guess the latter. The same logic applies to life-forecasting. Instead of projecting a long, wobbly stick out into the future, sometimes all you need to do is shorten your stick. Narrow your aperture. Focus on the next 3 months instead of the next 3 years. Or the next 3 hours, for that matter.

By shortening your stick, not only do you gain clarity, but you also are more likely to remain within the bounds of intrinsic motivation. Instead of overvaluing the future at the expense of the present, you have greater clarity and peace of mind to lean into the intrinsic joy that follows putting effort into things that you innately love to do.

You are right on time.

You are always right on time. Even when it doesn’t feel like it, you are still right on time. I hope this piece makes you ponder how you answer questions about your life goals, dreams, and desires. And I hope it creates a bit of spaciousness for you to let more grace and uncertainty into the picture. It’s okay if you don’t have it all figured out. (Spoiler alert: none of us do.) Thank you, John, for this much needed reminder and life-lesson. And thank you, Kat, for your ever-brilliant analogies.

Thank you reader for following along and I can’t wait to get “Caught Up in Char’s Web” again with you next week!

*Some original On-time bloomer artwork by 4-year-old Charlotte. Thank you, Caz, for resurfacing!