Life is about learning and Learning is messy

A friend shared that Rachael Alaia quote on Facebook yesterday. I think it's one of the most brilliant things I've read in awhile.

I met a friend this week. At some point I asked her what she does for a living. She said she's done nails for over 20 years. I said, I bet you have heard a lot of stories over the years. And she said, "oh, I've heard many stories, and I have shared many a tissue to catch tears."

Doing nails, what a beautiful space, I imagine, to collectively de-stigmatize the messy process of lifelong learning.

What if having beautiful nails is simply a stop along the way of lifelong learning. I wonder if tears are a stop along the same path?

I was on a trail once. It was the middle of a long and hot day. It was a race, but we were in no hurry. Mainly because I have very little hurry in me when it comes to trails and racing. 

I don't know, maybe it was the exhaustion. Or maybe it was something quite unrelated to that. But I started sharing some of the messy parts of my life. Some parts I'd never shared. And I cried. I cried some tears I had never cried before.

As I write that, I'm sure it was not exhaustion. I think it was the safety. There is a safety in the woods, and there is safety in certain human beings. I think they are the human beings that one way or another keep tissues handy.

I have come to believe this about vulnerability. That it's not an assignment. It's not something you commit to be better at today than you were yesterday. It's not like running or doing nails.

Vulnerability is a natural reaction to overwhelming safety.

Vulnerability becomes something I can't keep myself from being in the middle of this person and this moment. Whether that's the person doing your nails or the person running beside you on a trail.

And there's something powerfully authentic in those moments. Those moments when you realize my messy life isn't messy at all, it's just part of a messy process.

For me it was as close as I'd ever felt to being alive. Life is messy, the fact that we are messy in it makes us normal. There's something alive about feeling normal for the first time.

We do each other no favors - we harm each other, actually - when we pressure each other into believing our individual messes are the mess. We harm each other when we hold no safe places in life to collectively de-stigmatize the messy lifelong process of learning.

How do we do that better? How do we create space where people feel an overwhelming instinct to share their failures - their messes - instead of feeling pressured to protect the messy world from their mess. When the world always has been and always will be a mess.

Because learning is messy. And you can't grow without learning. And growing is the only authentic goal in life.

Everything else is myth.

Growing is the goal. Learning is your path. And all the way there, you will be a mess. The only question is, will we ask you to share or hide your mess?

If you find yourself in a space where you feel the latter - where you are having to hide your mess - don't hide there anymore.

Go get your nails done. Or go run a trail race. Go find your invitation to collectively de-stigmatize the messy process of lifelong learning.

That is where you will come alive. Maybe in tears. But you will come alive.
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