Meant to Happen
You put your thoughts and wishes out there into the universe and they will come back to you in spades. The tricky part is that you have no idea how it will come back to you. That’s the scary part. So, make sure whatever you put out there has good intentions behind it. Otherwise… look out!
I’ve been meaning to write this blog entry for quite some time. As you may know (or not), I have been working on my doctoral thesis proposal for quite some time. It’s been frustrating and easy to avoid. I have gone through great lengths to “clear the way” so that I could get my writing done in an expedient way. Here’s some news… you can’t get the job done unless you are completely focused on the task. My deepest apologies to all those out there who are “waiting” for me to finish. It’s in progress.
What I am realizing is… everything was meant to happen. It’s strange to believe that when I’m in the midst of writing limbo and people in my life are “waiting.” No pressure. In the big picture, I needed to have the 16 years of teaching experience to write about professional learning and mathematics education; I needed to deal with adversity in the workplace to disembed and engage in other educational leadership opportunities; and I needed to embark on self-employment to take risks and BLOG to restore my confidence in my writing and passion for my teaching practice.
In the small picture, I was reworking my research question. I was unfocused with my writing with full intentions of “saving the world” and “making a difference.” I needed to divorce myself from many of the ideas I wanted to write about to harness my deepest desires and rewrite a research question that is doable and contributes to academia. In the midst of re-evaluation, I bumped into a former colleague of mine on the ferry. It was good to see him. He’s a great teacher, mentor, and PhD recipient. I mentioned a research question I was considering and he responded with “sounds specific, what’s the so what?” This was so great! Formative feedback from someone I did not expect.
What I am saying is, big picture or small picture, it was all meant to happen. No one could have road-mapped this journey, not even me. My dad told me that as a child, I had always wanted a PhD. I do remember writing my name out with “letters” after my name. I had no idea that life would work out the way it did. Put it out there to the universe and it resolves itself in ways you cannot expect. A good friend reminded me of Steve Jobs’s 2005 address to Stanford University… You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect the dots looking back. The dots are connecting.