“This is just a beginning”
When the results of the 2020 election came out on Saturday, Michelle Obama’s message was clear. In her usual wise and compassionate way, she said via social media:
“After we celebrate – and we should all take a moment to exhale after everything we’ve been through – let’s remember that this is just a beginning. It’s a first step.”
For me, this message would have been less powerful, and I would go as far as to say less accurate, if she had said “This is just the beginning.” The use of the word ‘the’ might signal a false sense of having ‘arrived’. While this might have temporarily increased our confidence (and reduced a significant build-up of anxiety!) it would ultimately have promoted a false sense of security. The subtle difference between the determiners ‘a’ and ‘the’ makes a lot of difference when it comes to our seemingly endless struggle to accept that the ground shifts beneath us constantly.
As I have mentioned in past blogs, my work as a coach and consultant is centered around the work of organizational consultant William Bridges. In his landmark book ‘Transitions’, he reframes our long-held simplistic notion that everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. I use the word ‘reframe’ because he is in fact a huge proponent of this tri-structure. However, he does not believe that they happen in that order, or that they are even sequential. In fact, he stresses that they often happen simultaneously, they always overlap, they repeat, and loop, and cycle and… well, you get the idea. Only the last 18 pages of his 185-page book are dedicated to ‘new beginnings’. “We forget how indirect and unimpressive new beginnings are”, he says. The other 157 pages focus on the significance of ‘endings’ and most importantly, the work that lies in the space between what was, and what will be. It’s in the middle, (he calls this the ‘neutral zone’) where real transformation happens.
Even though the external new beginning may happen very quickly… the internal re-identification and re-engagement always occur more slowly.
When the first black man was elected President of the United States at the end of 2007, we celebrated hard and for good reason. We partied, marched, wept, sang, wrote poetry and created art. We fiercely believed and hoped. Surely this was a ‘new beginning’? Undoubtedly, this was a long overdue leap for this country. Many black people thought that they would never live to see the day. This was progress. Things will be different now. Right?
But, at the end of 2015…
When Michelle Obama said “It’s just a beginning” instead of ‘It’s just the beginning,’ she is reminding us that the work is ongoing, and always ahead of us.
Voting in one election isn’t a magic wand, and neither is winning one. Let us remember the millions of people who voted for the status quo… We’ve got a lot of work to do to reach out to those folks and connect with them… The path to progress will always be uphill.
Here’s Bridges again:
Genuine beginnings depend on an inner realignment rather than on external shifts, for it is only when we are aligned with deep longings that we become powerful motivated.
In westernized culture, we remain more comfortable with bright lines, fixed timelines, and clear structure. We like strong signals that an ending is final, and that after a new beginning, there is no need to look back. Eastern philosophers are thankfully relentless in their efforts to soften these behaviors, encouraging us to embrace uncertainty and find comfort within chaos. We are slow learners, aren’t we? The pathway to new beginnings is paved with more than sheer perseverance. It’s paved with beginnings and first steps. Thank you Michelle, for your words of wisdom. You join company with so many wise women teachers who continue to inspire me every day. I’ll close this week’s ramble with the words of another, Buddhist monk, Pema Chödrön:
What does it take to use the life we already have in order to make us wiser rather than more stuck…The answer to these questions seems to have to do with bringing everything that we encounter to the path. Everything naturally has a ground, a path, and fruition. This is like saying that everything has a beginning, middle, and end. But it is also said that the path itself is both the ground and the fruition. The path is the goal.