My recent London Class Reunion days had me thinking about continuity and change on the train that evening.
Being born in Canada (in four houses, right Dad?), then growing up in England (two houses) and spending University years in three countries before moving every two years of so when living in London, I’ve grown up with the rhythm of change.
But today, and for the last twelve years now I’ve been gazing at the same bone white ceiling every morning as I wake up.
Today, San Francisco and this bedroom has outstripped both the London days (12 years) and my later childhood home of Polesden View, Great Bookham (8 years) where I lived from around ten to eighteen plus the four years of Edinburgh and Grenoble university years where Polesden View was a cozy homebase.
Parents will debate nature and nurture. And while I it’s obvious and well trodden wisdom that nurture has a huge role, you’ll hear parents talk all the time about the completely different nature (personality) that kids will have (and then the life outcomes that so often evolve from that).
Our nature doesn’t change much, over the years, I believe. But, how life nurtures us – and how we let it nurture us – is endlessly evolving (think: friends, bosses, the culture and physical environment of where we choose to live). And so it should. It’s simply a fact of obviousness that whatever our nature, there’s always a new chance to nurture a shift in tomorrow.
In April, I pulled together an Economics class reunion at a restaurant on the South Bank of the Thames tucked under a bridge (see A London Class Reunion).
And, that Friday lunchtime together, over two hours, you could feel how the chemistry of Jeff, Laura, Aron, Yogi, Charlie, Simon – and Mr. Simpson (“Simpers” per private school nicknomenclatures…), you could feel how the chemistry from those two years sitting in a classroom for endless hours learning the basics of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics 1992-1994 had created rich bonds to which we were quickly thrown back.
Those two hours made me realize how the contrast of change helps us see more clearly the constant threads of continuity. You realize how little our natures change, just adding new layers on the outside, like barnacles to a boat…
So, with a respectful hat tip to the truths of nature – and Dad’s oft-repeated tenet that “apples don’t fall from the tree” – the sweet juice of life that is more interesting to guide by is how we can nurture, and position ourselves, to endlessly evolve and change in rich ways.
I’ll think to the Serenity Prayer in chewing on this aspect of life.
While in an instant we can understand: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change” with a quick and assertive retort of “got it” (in Yank speak), the real juice to squeeze in life is the 20% of attitude that can supercharge the 80% of great days ahead, through exploring a lifetime of “the courage to change the things I can.”
