July 2024 – The open lightness of being, a shifting force of personality
Here we go again with the super positions of my own destiny. After taking a few months off to find peace in writing, creativity, fitness, free association living, and the open lightness of being; I’ve decided to dedicate myself wholly into career planning. I don’t do this rashly or with false bravado, but with the steady resolve of a battle tested veteran. I wish to use this new mission of landing my next gig, as a conduit of my true desires and conviction. Not as a ‘should do’ but as a ‘love to’.
I desire to explore different dimensions of my identity, and I would like to do this with a guided track, a career or new location that accelerates my thinking, agitates me towards change and evolves my point of view. Too conflated? Too grandiose? Perhaps. A job shouldn’t define you, and a change of location doesn’t guarantee change. Afterall, ‘everywhere you go, there you are’. However, the past six months of 2023 has taught me a few things about spontaneity versus responsibility. Neither are dirty words, and neither work in isolation. I have operated as my ‘best self’ when I can find fluid harmony between them. And I sense now, having delved into free spontaneity, doing as I choose when I choose, following the day’s twists and turns without resistance or judgment, that I have a deep and profound trust in my ability to navigate uncertainty. In fact, it’s gotten too easy, too comfortable, to feel any longer like I’m growing as a force of personality.
This is what I crave, to be that force of personality for the world. So I invite responsibility to balance the endeavor, I invite a new lane beneath my feet. A focused and dedicated track, not as confinement or out of obligation, but out of interest in how some guardrails might serve me to go further. It’s time I start thinking about the next stage of my career not as a socio-economic control measure, nor as a Sisyphian task, but as an advanced degree, an enrollment program, or a master class curriculum. It’s the dedication towards truly interesting and intrinsically fulfilling exploration. This is all I mean by a ‘track’, a program to plug into, a VIP entry card that gives me new access to resources, people and perspectives I would previously be unable to conjure through self-determination alone.
This is what career planning should be for me, reclaiming the wide-eyed enthusiasm for the coolest internship a ‘hair on fire’ young man could ever dream of landing. And those super positions, that I have sometimes feared, will continue to play out as I spend my time imagining the infinite possibilities of my future self. The London Paul, the back in the USA Paul, the double back down on Dublin, the waning of city life love, the path to second stage careering, the new appetites for a new life-style. That’s ok, we all need to use hope as a magnetic pole. I only ask that these dreams of the future do not handcuff me, or limit my passion to fully earn them, surrendering the need to be fully immersed in the nuisances of ‘doing’.
Stay open to plans not going exactly as they existed in your head, isn’t that always the best advice? This is where I believe my strengths of the past six months can help. The opportunity to remain flexible during exploration, remove my attachment to outcomes, and remain spontaneous in the day. The self-trust to recommit to a heavy career, a heavy responsibility, without feeling the weight of indecision, the burden of high expectations, the pressure of black and white outcomes, or the distracting fantasy of an impossible dream. This is all in the spirit of feeling an profoundly ‘open lightness of being’.
I feel that now, I desire the openness for change without fear of loss. I desire a recommitment without the weight of confinement. I put my faith in my own ability to endeavor, and the ensuing inflammation of my mind, varied self-expressions and ultimately deep self-respect. My invitation to the world has been sent. My arms open wide. I am ready.
Paul Carreo 