Photo by Jon Tyson
How do we constantly get it so wrong?
Why is forward better when life isn’t linear?
I’ll never pretend to understand shapes, geometry or the space-time continuum, but what I do know is life isn’t linear, so moving forward is a pointlessly immeasurable goal.
I recently read a book about intergenerational trauma which suggests that more often than we care to admit, we are living a life that’s already been laid out for us.
”It Didn’t Start with You,” the book I’m referencing, argues that we inherit stories, traits, habits even, from past generations, which are oftentimes rooted in a traumatic experience that wasn’t able to be resolved in a singular lifetime.
For example, there are references of a woman with irrational suicidal thoughts which always come back to wanting to “incinerate” herself. With the help of the therapist, the author of this book, she discovered that perhaps this pattern of thinking comes from her maternal grandmother’s survivor’s guilt after losing her family in Auschwitz.
There’s another story about the collective trauma a group of mothers who were in their 3rd trimester experienced during 9/11 (they were physically near the site) which inevitably affected their babies’ birthweight and even showed up to 16 different gene expressions not found in the other study participants.
We all want to believe that a) we’re in control and we have choice, b) we’re different, smarter, and better equipped than previous generations and c) even if we’re not, obviously we’re the exception.
Hinting otherwise would garner a scoff and “pssshhhhhh” with the most pursed of lips.
And yet…
Ask any 20-something what it’s like to move back in with their parents. Ask them if they revert to the obnoxious habit of turning the one-syllable word “mom” into a never-ending “mooooommmmmmmmmm” at the slightest inconvenience.
Ask any 30-something what their most-played playlist is. Note: not their favorite, but their most played. As a content marketer, I can tell you that what people say, and what people do are two different things. Data knows all. I bet it’s music they listened to between the ages of 13 and 19.
40-somethings ferociously argue toe-to-toe with their teenagers—eye rolls and all— as if they’ve forgotten how much more of the world they’ve seen and experienced than they have.
We move backwards all the time, and yet we tell ourselves it’s not happening.
I suppose I’d like to make the case that moving forward isn’t all it’s made out to be…
For starters, everything is made up and we have no sense of direction in life because that would also imply the existence of a map. If you find one, please share with the class. (Me. I’m the class.)
Also, for my own sense of mental well-being, I disagree with the finality that comes with moving forward. It makes choices unnecessarily and exceedingly permanent.
There should be more people advocating the fact that moving forward doesn’t mean that you can’t always take a step back as well. *picks up cross no one asked her to carry*
Aside: when copywriters, or people in general, start a caption with “I don’t know who needs to hear this today” it’s 150% them talking to themselves. They needed to hear that today.
Maybe that’s what this post is about. It’s for me.
I’ve just made some major life changes. Huge. Like, Nora Ephron could’ve scripted the past few months of my life. And I want to believe that even though I’ve chosen, I can choose again, or choose differently, or simply not choose and eat roasted red pepper hummus until I want to choose.
All this talk of forward has left, right and backwards feeling suuuuups left out… jussayin. And don’t even get me started on diagonal!
I think the pressure we put on ourselves to go onward and upward highly devalues what other roads have to offer, and yes, even earlier or younger versions of you.
The pressure to constantly evolve is why so many of us are simply unable to can.
Being an adult and walking around with adult expectations is hard enough without this constant 1:1 race we run with ourselves.
Happy choosing (or avoiding). And remember kids, nothing about this messy existence is straight, linear or following any semblance of a pattern.
So, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my roasted red pepper hummus and lip sync battle (for 1) of “All I have to Give.”
