Janus was the king of Roman mythology who was depicted with two faces: one turned to the past and the other to the future. He was the god of the rites of passage, of transition, of the holidays.

December is the month when we look at what has been and make plans for the upcoming year. We are like Janus ourselves: we do the balance sheet and analyze it, like our colleagues in the finance department; we make plans, we imagine what we would like, we allow ourselves, maybe more than at other times of the year, in the case of some of us, to dare to dream more, to imagine what it would be like if…, the same as we do in company strategy meetings.

One risk we may have, however, is to make scenarios for the future based too much on what has been in the past. It’s like driving a car looking too much in the rearview mirror, instead of paying attention to what’s in front of and around us at all times. Of course, the way we behave in the past can give clues about the future. But it can also limit us. I believe that anything can be negotiated, rethought, changed, except principles. But these are broad lines: we behave respectfully, we are polite, modest, we forgive, we learn from mistakes, for example.

Principles are a kind of backbone around which we build ourselves, what we want, our micro and, why not, macro universe. They are present when we look at the past, they are also there when we stop to project a desired future.

Like Janus, it’s good to look at the future. Maybe the pandemic pushed us to look in the mirror, to analyze, the search for a meaning above that given by a job that pays the bills. This year I noticed that many people, past a certain age, started a personal analysis, an exploration of who / what they are, who / what could become. And it is natural for this exploration to happen because we evolve over time depending on the context, the situations in which we find ourselves, the people around us. The motivations of an ‘extrinsic career’ (salary, promotion, security) are no longer enough from a certain point on. Intrinsic career involves the feeling of contribution, meaning, added value, control over your own time, I would even say to write your own job description or to accept it as a fluid one, in continuous change. However, this implies a great tolerance for living in discomfort, uncertainty. On the other hand, I don’t really know what’s certain nowadays, beyond what we know, we can do it ourselves.

December is a pretext. Of course, we can do an analysis exercise at any time. But I don’t know how much we remember, caught in our dance with our daily activities, that it helps us to stop, from time to time and see:

What are we about?

When we are alone, what do we like to do, beyond the activities at the base of Maslow’s pyramid?

What do we want for us in the medium and long term?

Who are the people around us, how much do they support us in becoming better?

Who was with us during our tough times?

What makes us happy, gives us energy?

What does our energy take?

How much or less are we in line with the times we live in?

What are the possibilities of manifesting ourselves? In what areas?

What has kept us in place in the past / so far?

What would give us the feeling of fulfillment, contribution?

If someone wrote an article about us, what would we want them to put there? If someone were to introduce us to a scene, what would we like to say?

So, I propose to look from the balcony at the movie of our life, to analyze what it was, and to boldly rethink the possible scenarios for the next episodes.

via: Revista Cariere

Sursă foto: Wikipedia

Georgeta Dendrino