The Gathering: Milestones

Good Morning and welcome to The Gathering! It is Sunday May 1st, 2016! We are creeping up to the halfway point of this year! Although a rather gloomy first day of May, so far here in Southern Ontario, I can’t hide my excitement about what May has in store! Gardening, BBQ’s, hikes, longer days, and my birthday! Beom.

I have been thinking about milestones and I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you. I follow a woman who I have mentioned before, Jaime Primak Sullivan, I love her – I think she’s great; smart, funny and important enough to start most days with what she has to say, anyway, she and her husband celebrate with a date night every week. She often posts a picture of them together on their outing captioned with “we made it another week!” I love this, and even before I got hooked on her, Joe and I have made it a priority to acknowledge and celebrate each month we’ve “made it.” The backlash though, although there is also a lot of support, that I see her get, and that I too have felt at times, is crazy. People criticize, “Is it really that bad that you have to say you’ve made it another week?” Which is counterintuitive, celebrating that you have made it through anything and everything that we make it through deserves some attention and thought. Some days deserve acknowledging that we have made it through them. Not because they are all bad, but because: life, love, careers, and days, take hard work. But this is neither here nor there.

Why is any of this important?

Acknowledging time-passed presents an opportunity for reflection and assessment as well as projection and goals. Living a balanced life requires a healthy amount of both, and of course being present.

Acknowledging time passed presents an opportunity for accomplishment, healing and growth. When we realize that we have made it through the many storms of life and our marriage is still intact, or when we have been following our dreams for six months and can look back on how much we have done.

When we look back and realize it has been five years since the heartbreak that we thought we would never survive and we are still here, and stronger than ever. Or when we realize we have remained on this planet for eight years since their passing and can still feel them near. When we look back to ourselves ten years ago and where we are now and see how much we have grown.

Acknowledging time spent and milestones reached in our relationships and lives is important. Not just because it is nice to reflect and celebrate, which it is but this time spent and milestone reached is in itself a lesson to be learned. There is a lot we can learn from acknowledging these times, in all areas, business, marriage, dating, birthdays, friendships, and health.

The first six months of every thing that we do, including living itself, are crucial. There is a significant growth between the beginning and this milestone. In our relationships and endeavours this is often known as the make or break period. We have learned enough about what we are dealing with and what we have to do, to decide whether or not we want to see if we can take it to the next level. We have become familiar with what this is like. If we look at our lives, endeavours, and relationships like growing children, we know that every six months there is a significant, visible growth. And reaching these places with a partner, in a job, or in a project is important and it is worth paying attention.

The years’ marker is undoubtedly the most celebrated with birthdays, wedding anniversaries, been open for one year, etc.. But actually, if we wanted to break it down into monthly weekly and even daily growth, we could. The milestones are opportunities and opportunities should be considered carefully before we just let them pass by.

It only takes a minute to see what milestones you're at or coming to, and what they might represent. Happy Sunday!