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The sweetness of a second life

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There is a quiet but pervasive myth in our culture that if we do the ‘right’ things (graduate, work hard, get promoted – date, get engaged, get married – have babies, steer them through toddlerhood, get them to adulthood) then, at this point, we have made it. We have succeeded in doing all the things we’re told we should do. We’ve climbed the grown-up gauntlet and reached the pinnacle, and all we have left to do is to enjoy the view from the top.

We’re not sure about you, but this myth has proved so untrue for the three of us that it’s tempting to laugh in its face.

To us, life feels more like a meandering mountain trail. Wrong turns are part of it, as are long pauses to enjoy the scenery. False starts and major changes in direction are par for the course.

To varying degrees, we used to be overly stressed alphas who took pride in all the goals we achieved, all the flights we took and all the accolades we accumulated. You’re now more likely to find us prioritising peace over pace and alignment over achievement.

We’ve had husbands who are no longer our husbands. Businesses that are no longer our businesses. Careers that are no longer our careers. Approaches to life that felt right at the time, but eventually slipped away.

And thank goodness for that. Honestly: thank goodness for the pivots, the losses, the break-ups, the changes. Thank goodness we didn’t climb the mythical path that requires us to do all the ‘right’ things, reach supposed success and then rest on our laurels.

Through mucky trials and many errors, we’ve learned that there is a sweetness in letting go of so-called success and surrendering to a second life (and then welcoming the third, fourth and seventeenth lives that follow). There is a sweetness in realising that the things you once chased and the people you once loved are no longer meant for you. There is a sweetness in letting these things go, making a leap of faith, and taking the tiny, tentative steps towards what is meant for you.

Don’t get us wrong. Letting things go sounds like the easiest thing in the world. We know it’s not. We still find ourselves occasionally avoiding surrender by falling back into old habits of grasping, fearing, controlling and hustling. Taking the meandering, less-trodden path also sounds doable, but if you happened upon our years-long WhatsApp chat, you’d find dozens of examples of all the times we’ve fallen into potholes of fear and self-doubt.

Society sells us a lie that says if we do all the culturally applauded things, we can sit atop the mountain of success and enjoy its glow. Yet the people we speak to and coach say the opposite is true. They do all the things, get to the top and find that instead of feeling the satisfaction of success, they are greeted with a pile of unanswered questions. Whose mountain did I just climb? Which mountain out there might be mine? Do I have the strength to get off this mountain? A mountain that others have admired me for climbing? Do I have the courage to walk up a mountain that others may never have hiked, and may never understand?

We can choose to take the well-trodden path that we’re told will lead us all the way to the top of the mountain of success. We tried it, all three of us, but after a while it felt stifling and stale.

We now choose to blaze our own trails. They’re full of stumbles and surprises, and others can’t always make sense of them. But they have led us to the sweetness of a second life – and all the lives that have come after.

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