Merriam-Webster defines “becoming” as the present participle of become. It means to eventually have as a state or quality, as in growing.
Becoming, as an adjective, is defined as meeting the requirements of a purpose or situation.
When we are in the process of becoming, it is easy to get discouraged and distracted by the busyness or the lack of a finished product. We feel like we should be closer to our goals or closer to this or that achievement. We forget to look at how far we have come.
The art of becoming isn’t the finished product, but rather the lessons we must learn along the way. Those lessons and moments are what shape the finished product.
I think about the process of pottery. You start by cutting and weighing her clay. You gather the tools to throw it on the wheel. But must shape or wedge the clay before you can throw it. Once it is weighed, wedged, and your tools are gathered, then you can throw on the wheel. But just because you wedged and weighed the clay does not mean the job is done, nor that it will be easy.
The reason I love working in pottery is because there is an element of unpredictability that comes with the work, especially for beginners. Different clay behaves differently from others, the speed of the wheel is varying, the strength of your force to shape it varies. This means that even if you do the exact same thing, over and over, you may still end up with various pieces and outcomes.
It is the same with life. A wise woman shared with me, every variable required to create a situation has to happen just so to create that specific outcome. That means that everything that needs to happen to bring about the results you are currently experiencing right now happened. However, there is one variable that we have control over and that is ourselves and how we respond.
We are in control of how we react to the things that happen and how that mold us. We can let one rude customer ruin our day or we can let it be a moment and more past it. We can allow bad things to define us or shape us into a better person.
It is a daily, no, moment-to-moment choice that we get to make. How will you handle your becoming?
Much love,
Dacey
