Dr. Seuss can help us find our way
Does this sound familiar? It’s all you can do right now to just get from day-to-day in these weird, wild times. You’re unsure about what to do or where to go next. Your plans have fallen down in mid-flight. You worked so hard on something, harder than you’ve ever worked on anything your life, and still, it didn’t turn out as you hoped. Now, you’re just waiting.
If that strikes a chord, I want you to know you’re not alone. I feel like that most days at this particularly strange period in our history. I’m grateful for a lot of things in my life — my health, my friends, my home to name just a few. And I also find myself at a crossroads. Nothing seems clear. No matter which path I look down, I can barely see one pace in front of me. What I’d planned to do next and where I’d planned to go hasn’t panned out and maybe won’t for the next four years. I just don’t know what to do. I feel adrift. So, I’m just waiting.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been here. I’m sure it won’t be the last. Thinking about this conundrum, I was reminded of that sage of rhyme and reason, Dr. Seuss* and his setting of The Waiting Place. In his classic book Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, often given to people beginning a new chapter, the main character gets stuck.
“…Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t…
You’ll be left in a Lurch…
You’ll be in a Slump.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked…
You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace…
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…for people just waiting…”
To be honest, I get a little choked up when I read this book out loud. I understand the cycle of bang-ups and hang-ups that life brings. “Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.” That one really hits home for me right now when it feels like a lot of doors are being closed for so many people.
Luckily, Oh, the Places You’ll Go! doesn’t end in The Waiting Place and the path of the story has something to offer us in these times. Eventually our hero finds his way out of The Waiting Place and he’s moving along, riding high once again. Until…he takes another tumble, feeling very much alone and afraid. He nearly gives up. He keeps going because he doesn’t know what else to do. It isn’t fun to trudge through fear and despair, but it’s necessary. Eventually he finds his way, and learns life is “a Great Balancing Act.”
Re-reading this book helped me realize even though I may not be able to make progress according to the plan I created six months ago, there are other areas of my life where I can focus. I keep thinking about the best piece of advice I heard in 2024: “When you don’t know what to do, do what you know.”
Here’s what I know: I can pour my energy and time into my writing. I can test some entrepreneurial ideas. I can help nonprofits doing important, impactful work. I can spend more time with my friends and helping make New York City a better city for all. I can learn as much as possible right where I am and do as much good as possible with and for those around me. I can work on becoming the best me I can be so when the light returns, I’ll be able to take it all in.
On January 1st, I decided my word for 2025 would be “Rebuild”. I didn’t expect that word to be so on the nose so soon into the new year but here we are. Like an arrow being pulled back, in the tension, in the waiting, I can prepare myself to fly forward — eventually. This isn’t the path I intended to take, but I can still make the most of the journey.
*I acknowledge that Theodor Geisel made some horrible, racist choices with some of his art. The books that showcase that were rightly taken out of print by his estate, and I think he would have agreed that was the right thing to do. During his lifetime, he apologized for them and made amends for the harm he caused.