When Life Offers Pass-Throughs
And thoughts on finding your vocation.
A few weeks ago I went to New York City for a workshop. This isn’t remarkable—I go to New York all the time—but I usually stay in Midtown, close to meetings and close to the park. But due to a last-minute switcharoo, I booked a hotel downtown, which I thought was in deep Tribeca. (“Maybe it will be quiet?” I thought.) Instead, I found myself one block south of Canal Street—in fact, exactly one block south from my first apartment in New York City. When I graduated from college, I moved into what was a very illegal sublet above a Burger King—four of us in a “loft” that kind of had working plumbing—exactly half my life ago, almost to the day.
That night, I fell asleep to the incessant blare of horns (how did I ever sleep through this?) and then the next morning, hopped on the N/R to 42nd Street, stepping out in front of 4 Times Square, the former home of Condé Nast. While I was heading to a different destination (breakfast with my brother), this had been my daily commute—two decades later, I executed the commute on auto-pilot. (One significant difference: I used to do this in very high heels.) As I returned to the hotel that night, I found myself stepping over vendors selling counterfeit goods—Goyard now, instead of Louis Vuitton, marveling that pretty much everything is exactly the same. Everything except that the Burger King is now a Pollo Campero and the building has a tidier entryway, complete with a glass window—helpful, as we used to gingerly open the metal door when I lived there so as to not knock one of the vendors off her stool. Without fail, she would set up right in front of our entrance.
This visitation with my former self was weird and unplanned and made me think about pass-throughs—all those moments in your life when you’re having the same experience, or repeating the same pattern, but ideally from a higher or different vantage point and not just a different moment in time. I’ve experienced a fair amount of these “wait, how am I here again, doing the exact same thing moments,” and am always left wondering why I’m back on the spiral: What’s incomplete, or what I’m supposed to learn?
Naturally, I thought a lot about my 22-year-old self while I was in New York, namely how the decade that followed was rough. I’ve written a bit about it a bit on this Substack (see: “Resisting Being Saved”), but I had exactly nothing figured out, nor did I find my glorified ‘20s to be fun…even though I was living out some sort of Devil Wears Prada/Sex and the City fantasy like so many other media types. At times, it was pretty miserable. I had a job that didn’t seem like it could be a viable career (it became one), I couldn’t see beyond being permanently single (that worked out just great), I had no money and held my breath when I opened my bills every month for fear that I would be driven into unrecoverable debt by blowing my cell phone minutes (remember those plans?). And I certainly didn’t know if I could achieve both stability and meaning in my life simultaneously. I often thought about going to law school or business school just because it seemed more secure. (If you want a great conversation about ‘20s and ‘30s and the under-examined Quarterlife crisis, tune in to this episode with Jungian therapist Satya Doyle Byock, “Navigating Quarterlife.”)
While walking along Canal Street one night, I thought about a stunning story in professor Jeffrey Kripal’s new book, How to Think Impossibly. It’s from one of his PhD students at Rice, John Allison, who recounts how in 2013, he was sitting in his basement apartment after hanging out with friends when he saw a man’s legs approach the window. He could just see his gym shorts and his flip flops, but he felt a wave of powerful energy and love: “You’re going to be OK, you’re going to be OK, you’re going to be OK.” The man moved away and John started to cry uncontrollably. The following years were terrible, where John often felt like he was going to die: Medical mysteries, trips to the ER, depression, and sky-high anxiety ensued. Then, in 2017, while out for a walk in his neighborhood, John got the sense that something important was about to happen. In an email to Jeff, John writes:
“I notice that the light is on in my front room (which surprises me because I know I had not left it on). But in a moment, I am not just surprised, but stunned as I perceive that there is a man sitting in the basement room, and that man is me, except younger. The hairs on my arms stood up on end. My heart began racing. I felt a surge of adrenaline in my body. And then, suddenly, a voice in my head said, ‘Now is the time.’ And somehow, I knew what I was going to do.
“I rushed up to the basement window and then I put my forehead against the house, closed my eyes, and just ‘sent’ this feeling of love and comfort to my younger self with the whole of my being. I don’t know how long I stood there doing this, but when I was done ‘sending’ this message, I looked down, and the basement lights were off.
“I then ran inside, turned on the lights, and things were as I left them before my walk. And I fell upon the basement floor, weeping in joy, clutching my flip flops to my chest, and feeling like I had just been given some unthinkably tremendous gift. I often now wonder what would have happened if I had not somehow sent a message to myself during my years in crisis.
“This was easily one of the most important events of my entire life. I have hardly told anyone about it.”
Jeff is coming back on the podcast tomorrow (here’s our first episode, “When Spirituality and Science Converge”) and we talk about John’s event—including what it suggests about “timeswerving,” time travel, and UFOs. (I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s a good one.)
When I got home from New York, I did a call with a twenty-something who I met this summer, a twenty-something who decided to pursue a graduate degree after college because she thought it was the stable choice. Now, she was realizing that her ensuing career not only doesn’t feel stable, but that it feels pretty meaningless too. I directed her to Satya’s book, and then told her what I would have told my 22-year-old self if I could have timeswerved like John and sent positive thoughts through the walls on Canal Street.
“What you’re making now is not what you will be making in even five years time. This period in your life is hard, don’t buy the cultural messaging that it’s supposed to be fun and easy, and that something is ‘wrong’ if it’s not. Try to figure out your vocation by listening closely to your heart: What makes you come alive, and alternately what makes you feel dead inside. Your best shot is to use that vocational call as a lighthouse—and steer your ship in its direction, recognizing that it might be rough seas on the path. It might not feel like it, but it’s going to be OK.”
The etymology of vocation comes from Latin (vocare), “to call.” It is exactly that.
Here’s James Hollis (if you missed our podcast conversation, it’s here) in A Life of Meaning: “Vocation, for example, is one of those summonses of the soul. We all do jobs to earn our living, but what is our vocation, our vocatus, our ‘calling’? Our calling often requires commitment, discipline, courage, consistency, and persistence. It’s not about comfort, fitting in, being normal at all.” He continues, “We were all born knowing what is right for us. It was called instinct, but when we were tiny, dependent, vulnerable, at the mercy of the world around us, we had to adapt to the fate into which we were thrown. As Jung often mentioned, most of our troubles come when we have lost contact with our guiding instincts, that energy within each of us that’s in service to becoming who we are in the world.”
I recently made a video about the word desire: It comes from “de” + “sidus” (Latin)—to lose one’s navigational star. Life really is about reconnecting to this inner GPS, to finding that call. I wish I could have done it for my 22-year-old self, I wish I could do it on behalf of my twenty-something friend on the phone, but we’ve all got to learn how to sail on our own. In The Amen Effect, Rabbi Sharon Brous shares the words of Dr. Howard Thurman, who wrote: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who come alive.” And then later, Rabbi Brous tells the story of the 18th-century Rabbi Zusya:
“Zusya shared that he had had a vision. On the day of judgment, he was not asked, ‘Why weren’t you Moses, leading your people out of slavery?’ or ‘Why weren’t you Joshua, leading your people into the Promised Land?’ Instead he was asked, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you Zusya?’ Becoming ourselves is a spiritual imperative of the highest order—for our own sakes and for the sake of the world.”
If you could time-swerve, what would you tell your 22-year-old self?
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Ah, the 20's.... Or as I say, the decade from hell. The 30's were about pulling myself up off the floor, dusting myself off and looking around to see where I needed to go.The 40's were about finally taking a deep breath and realizing that not only did I survive, but I was starting to thrive, and everthing after that has been a continuous spiral into the internal Universe of myself and my union with the Divine. But the 20's. I sporatically kept journals, and when I happen to run across them and read them I can't believe the suffering I experienced. But.. The seeds of my wisdom were there as well. Sometimes the wise things I wrote floor me, so I felt the blueprint, but the time since has been about connecting them and weaving them into the tapestry that is who I am and always have been. I feel like at birth we are given a box of beautiful threads and our life is about making them into a tapestry that tells our story in an artful way. When I was 5 I wanted to be a doctor, but I didn't like blood or guts particulary, so I decided pretty young that what I really wanted to be was a witch doctor. No blood. And I think I have done a pretty good job at manifesting that desire. I think the suffering of the 20's were instrumental in creating the beautiful weaving that I am at the tender age of 71. I would change nothing. It has all been essential on my journey.
Mixed emotions about my twenties. I still cringe when I think of some of the things I’ve done, but I’m also beyond grateful for her bravery. A young girl leaving small town Georgia for big San Fran and her dog. She was awesome, cool, fearless and at times completely foolish. I wish I had the same experience as John to send her the love she desperately needed.