The Unseen Work

Mid-life work is most important, done without notice, undetected.

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Have you ever fixed something in yourself and not shared it with anybody?

No announcement. No before-and-after.

You’ve been on a pattern for a number of years. Then one Wednesday you’ve decided that you’ve had it.

When you’re the only one who knows the change, then it may not seem as important.

I have healed something in my reaction to a certain kind of criticism, one that made me apologize just for being me.

It was gradual, secretive, and took months to occur. I was the only one who could see the change, but I did.

Nobody realized there was any difference. But life went on, and so did I.

Healing old wounds or improving your character in some way take on its own form. The procedure is much the same as patching a hole in a wall. It gets sanded, filled and painted.

The wall appears to be new once more, if the job is done well. There’s no one in the room who knows there’s been damage or that it was fixed by you.

We’re often told to measure our efforts by the ‘look’ that we get from others. We want to have someone else’s eyes on our work.

If your work is on the inside, and you forgive someone who is unlikely to know you did it or changing a habit that no one ever noticed, then it can seem like it doesn’t matter.

If you’re the only one who knows the difference, the change may not seem as important as it really is.

But no one clapped and it didn’t seem to happen.

The wall remains intact. The pattern shifted in a significant manner but did not make the daily news.

In fact, the most meaningful work that you do in midlife is accomplished out of your line of sight.

Not by a partner, not by a friend, and not even by you in the future. You will take this new-found stability for granted.

Consider, today, one thing that you’ve done to change yourself about which no one is aware of, not even you yet.

Name only one to yourself. That’s all it was ever going to get. It’s enough.

The remainder of the wall is still standing. Things shifted, although they may not have noticed it.

Thank you for reading.