The More I Grow, the Less I Know

Jordan Brown
Jul 27, 2017 · 4 min read
Photo by Johannes on Unsplash

I’m not the person I used to be. Yesterday was my thirtieth birthday, and the number, oddly, doesn’t make me feel much of anything. And it’s this surprising nothingness that has spurred me to write. If there is any feeling at at all, I suppose it comes from knowing that, for me, this is the start of another decade, another ten years on Earth. Thinking about it now, it’s funny how I assumed this would feel when I was younger, when I would project myself into the future and insert thoughts into my self yet to be. Being 30 now, It feels different, but it also feels familiar. I’m older in years but, I hope, childlike in my curiosity of how much I still don’t know.

As I gaze back at who I was when I turned 20, I have as much difficulty projecting backwards as I did forward. What I have discovered is that life, at its core, is paradoxical. The only way to learn and grow is to approach unfamiliar situations, not with assurance and bravado, but with a beginner’s mind. Often what is needed with clashing words and drawn swords is not more words and weapons — but more space. Life is lived when you let it be so — not so much when you seize it by the horns and try to hang on for the ride. Do that, and you are sure to eat dirt more times than you care to admit. But when you detach and gain the perspective to admire yourself in the dance of life, you see that the bull and the china shop are your own creations.

So at the turning of another year and another decade, I wonder what happened to the last ten years. My memories aren’t static images, photographs of specific instances in time. They are evolving and shifting — as am I. As current thoughts blend into a dreamscape of shifting emotions stirred up by past actions residing on the bedrock of my childhood years, I start to see that it’s all connected. The fabric of my life has been stitched together from the past misdeeds of the person I never wanted to be. The stitches, garish as they are up close, turn into a closer-to-finished project when I exchange myopic anxiety for budding awareness.

These days, there is an easing up and letting go of all of the thoughts and worries that seemed like the end of the world when I was younger. I’ve long sailed in a boat roiled by the waves of an anxious mind. I’ve always had a propensity for thinking of things as worse than they really are. It’s only over the last few years that I’ve learned that obsessing over thoughts does not guard me against them — it makes me their slave. Acceptance of the bad thoughts and the unpleasant parts of me is becoming more natural. What I once viewed as weakness, I now view as courage.

I feel confident in who I am — and who I am continuing to become — but it doesn’t stem from increased knowledge and fixed beliefs. It’s more intuitive than that. It’s seeing the value in what is left unsaid, in the pregnant pauses and the unforgiving silence. When I know something to be true, I don’t need to say it. On the other hand, I know now that when I frantically seek something, be it power, happiness, or fame, I don’t find it. Instead, when I strive to know myself better, I come to better know others.

Yet, as I get older, there is little that I feel I actually know with certainty. I can offer up what I think is true and see if it resonates with someone else. More often than not, the private thoughts are shared by others, and the burden of living becomes easier to bear.

I feel that my time here is fleeting and that life is unpredictable. The only thing I can control at all is how I respond to the exciting randomness of this existence. Finding meaning is not so much about knowing the one right thing as it is about enjoying the meaning-making process for what it is.

The worst moments of my life line up right alongside the best moments of my life— and they all eventually get stitched into the fabric. It’s amazing that our patched-up, rag-doll bodies function at all, but they do, and they do quite well. We’re all bits and pieces of something or other from somewhere else, cobbled together to make a whole. We all look sort of similar, but we are all most definitely unique.

In the end, turning 30 means something, and it doesn’t mean anything at all. I can’t put my finger on it. I think that might be the point.

Jordan Brown

Written by

Social worker making mental health accessible @ nerve10.com | Compassionate Coach @ jordanpbrown.com | My daily newsletter: newsletter.thementalhealthupdate.com

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