I spend a lot of time pondering what I’m supposed to be doing with my life (as a 24 year old often does), and it repeatedly comes to my attention that not only do I not know, I can’t know. So now what? I’ve resolved that while I can’t prepare myself for something I don’t know is coming, I can be in the best shape possible to adapt and grow from whatever does.
A model that’s been on my mind recently about this has been fitness. When I think about how fitness is usually understood in the physical health sense, I notice it’s often used to describe a state of being physically resilient and capable. Fit, according to Oxford English, is
having the requisite qualities or skills to undertake something competently
“Something”, in this case, then, is life. I realize I can be fit in more ways than just physically fit, and that my higher order pursuits, while they can’t always be directed at concrete end goals, can be directed at curating a state of physical, intellectual, and emotional fitness.
Physically fit to engage in activities I love without injury or pain, live to see my children grow up, and, if need be, run away from a bear; intellectually fit to understand the world, process and express in ways to be understood by it, and continue to do so as I grow old; emotionally fit to love deeply and experience the perimeters of human emotion with people I would die for.
There’s no way for me to know exactly how my life is meant to unfold, but I can continuously make myself the type of person fit for however it becomes.