The Power of Possibility
I’m not blogging this week. I mean, here it is my blog post, obviously, but I wrote it last week. This week I am celebrating the power of the possible.
It all started with a women’s group my friend had been trying to get me to join for years, since our kids were in toddler care together. She finally succeeded by asking me to speak about local politics. For me, any opportunity to trash politicians is good enough for me, so I showed up and enjoyed the company, and have been going to the group meetings ever since. I always feel a little weird, like, what am I doing in an English-speaking ladies group? How did I get this old? Shouldn’t I be at a high-tech or management networking event with a roomful of, you know, men?
But really the group is wonderful, due to the power of selection and persistence. It’s been going, I don’t know, maybe for 10 years. The organizer is selective about the members and the speakers, and everyone brings amazing food. Although there are about 60 of us, and we don’t necessarily all know one another personally, the one thing you can count on is the general wonderfulness of each handpicked individual.
How many groups of friends have you been part of where you decided to continue meeting ongoingly, but nothing happened with that? Too many to count. 10 years. I don’t know how much time the ladies who keep this going invest, but month after month, there’s a great meeting with a great activity or speaker and everyone brings great food.
The group is so wonderful that on Monday I see an e-mail to the group from a member, saying that she and her husband are taking their yacht to Cyprus next week, and since she knows all the group members are wonderful, she wonders if there is a couple with sailing experience who would like to join them.
Now, I am neither a skipper nor a couple. The latter is an advantage, because it means I can choose anyone I know who is a skipper. And who I want to spend a week with. I know a lot of people. A LOT. But I don’t want to spend a week in a boat with most of them. And 98% of them have no sailing experience.
Within two hours hour, I am able to inform her that my boyfriend sails and that we are interested in joining them.
I don’t know how within 3 days the two of us managed to rearrange our children, our jobs, and all of our other obligations and be ready to take to sea, but we did. It’s not a dramatic and life-changing shift, but it is definitely unexpected, given the trajectory of my life a week ago. Suddenly I have a dream vacation, a gorgeous guy, and new friends.
You know, the world is full of opportunities. We tend to think that big changes and big shifts take time. In fact, big changes often take just one phone call. When we are willing to seize the moment, swerve from our comfort zone, and just do whatever it takes, miracles happen.
