Living With The Question Mark

I brought a journal with me thinking I would write down my thoughts and insights about my future as I’m making this 128-day voyage around the world.  I drew a question mark – a big one  – ? on the first page to indicate that the next decade of my life is somewhat undefined.

In his new book  “When,” Daniel Pink defines“9-enders,” as people in the last year of a life decade who experience a desire to evaluate their life, how they feel about what they have and haven’t accomplished, and how they want to experience life in the next decade. I, like many of my clients, fall into to the category of “9-enders.”

I’ve always had a vision of what my life would be like “next, ”but never really had a plan for how that would happen. I just had faith that my vision would become my reality and the details of “how” would take care of themselves, and they did. The question mark was never about what I wanted but instead about how I would achieve it.

I’m 64 days into the cruise and that question mark is all I’ve written in my journal. However, I’m beginning to think the question mark was an accurate indicator of my future because, not only do I not know where I’m going next with my life, I don’t know where this cruise ship is going next. The Corona Virus is wreaking havoc with our itinerary.

Last week we were told that we had to eliminate our stops in Indonesia, Singapore, and Kenya, and instead spend two days in Sri Lanka and three days in Mumbai, India. This week I learned that cruise ships are no longer allowed in India, Sri Lanka, or the Maldives. The current plan is to spend the next three weeks cruising around Australia with stops in Sydney, Townsville, Cairns, Broome, Exmouth, Geraldton, and Fremantle, plus lots of days at sea, and then hopefully pick up our original itinerary planned for Africa in April.

No matter where we go next, I’m thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to go half-way around the world over the past two months and visit New Zealand, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Antarctica, Easter Island, and islands in the South Pacific.

I’m also grateful that my family in Nashville didn’t suffer any damage from the tornado this week, even though it came within a mile of each of my daughter’s homes and destroyed the school that my daughters and granddaughter attended. Life can change in the blink of an eye.

Maybe I’m learning to be OK with the question mark and completely let go and flow with how life unfolds in the next decade instead of living with the illusion that I can control anything. It’s likely that the only way I could learn that lesson would be to be where I am now – in the middle of the Tasmanian Sea – totally trusting that whatever and wherever is next is OK.  

Something to think about.