Happy Sunday and more importantly, Happy Mother’s Day!
We spent the weekend celebrating one of my college friend’s weddings in Galveston.
After visiting a bookstore and catching up with friends from several years ago, I thought about the chapters that make up our life. We spent a night reminiscing on memories, stories, and people that were characters from that time in our book.
I love to read (when I have time), and I think books are a wonderful representation of the evolution of our life. Today, we will look at chapters, the defining ones and what to take from them.
I hope you all enjoy it!
What are Chapters?
If you separate your life into blocks of time, you can probably form several meaningful “chapters” of your life. These chapters can be quite similar in how they feel, and often represent challenges and experiences specific to that point.
From elementary through high school, chapters are mostly tied to the grade and school we are in. In early adulthood, we start defining them ourselves with milestones and life changes we often initiate on our own. Then comes the wedding season and the beginning of parenthood, before the cycle resets once again where you are now spectating your children through the same chapters.
Kylen and I are entering this final stage, which has inspired me to do some reflection on what the chapters of life even mean to me.
How I Treat Chapters
I try to treat chapters as pieces in my plot where something needs to be filled or resolved. You often hear “I’m in my (blank) era,” as if that person is manifesting the good qualities that come with that era. For me, I’d probably say I’m in my “grinding groom” era, because every day I’m working towards making the wedding happen and trying to juggle everything going on in my life.
Chapters are unique to each of us individually, but they serve as an amazing way to relate to others. Ever wonder why it’s so easy to relate to people that you have multiple things in common with? It’s because you have shared similar chapters that you both can relate and connect over.
Growing up, these were marked by: timely transitions to the next grade, changes in sports teams, and shifts in friendship. In adulthood, they are more milestone based: starting new jobs, finding the love of your life, and changing cities.
Each chapter is filled with special people who contribute to the outcome and your overall experience. There are a combination of negative and positive characters, but today I want to focus primarily on the positive characters.
The People (Characters) in Your Chapters
Your best friend from childhood. The coworker who “got you through it.” Your dynamic duo from a team you were on.
Some of these characters have a short-term role in your life. This used to cause me a lot of distress, especially after drifting apart from someone who used to be important.
There are two problems here: 1) is how much proximity influences our earlier relationships and 2) is our underestimation of how important depth is in our later relationships.
An example I go back to is my internship at Accenture. I made several great friends during the summer, where we would get the chance to see each other almost daily. We would spend time inside and outside of the office, which created strong bonds.
Like many things, internships come to an end, and the increased distance between everyone inevitably caused some connections to drift apart. Over the next few years, many of the friendships drifted further, but a few have remained.
For the ones that ended, I try to focus on the great experiences and lessons together. There’s something healing for me when I can reflect on the past with a smile, rather than with a sour taste in my mouth.
For those that remained, they have become major characters to me, where their influence continues to make an impact in the present. These relationships are the ones that have true depth. The depth that only comes with learning about you over many years and being there through the good and the bad times.
When we get older, these are harder to maintain, but a simple “how are you doing?” or reply to a post can be more than enough to let them know you are thinking about them until the next time you see each other.
Your family, significant other, and a couple of special friends can remain in your life for a multitude of chapters. These characters are staples in your book, but their role often evolves over time.
An Essential Character - Our Mother!
Well, without one very important person in all of our lives, we wouldn’t even have a book in the first place! Regardless of your relationship, your mother has been a major part of the outcome of your story.
I am blessed to have an amazing Mom that has continued to be the number one supporter of my brother and I through the entirety of our lives. Growing up I didn’t completely understand how lucky we were, but it becomes more apparent with every passing year.
We learned how to treat people and animals with kindness, the importance of celebrating milestones and being grateful for each day, and how essential it is to take care of our health.
She participates in our excessive sports talk, shares her opinion when we need to be checked, and still wants us to send arrival texts so she can “breathe.”
While I don’t give her daily recaps of my day like I used to when I was growing up, she remains an essential piece of who I am. She has shared her loving soul with Kylen and I’m extremely grateful to have her support when it comes to building our life together.
Thank you for all you have done and continue to do Mom! I love you!
Celebrating Chapters of Life
At some point, you’ve probably heard “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” - Andy Bernard, The Office
An iconic quote from a classic show, but it does really hit home. How often do we let a great period or chapter of our life pass us by without being truly appreciative of it?
Revisiting the idea from earlier that chapters are pieces of our plot, when a season is nearing an end or ends, why not think back to the best parts of it? Why not think back to how far you’ve come over the last few years?
I’ve had some incredible years, some very painful years, and just about everything in between.
Did college go perfectly? Hah. My first semester greeted me with a beat down and a nice reality check. I watched my efforts of building a fraternity with my friends get ripped away without a real explanation. But guess what? Last night we got to watch one of our friends get married and we all got to celebrate together like we were back in college.
The point is, each chapter is going to have plenty of ups and downs. Right now, wedding planning has been a chaotic experience, but in four months, we will be getting married with our close friends and family. Focusing on the bad experiences or frustrations for too long takes away from the great things life has for us.
Cherish the moment you are in now, reminisce on the best parts of the past, and carry a mindset forward that the best chapters of your book are still yet to be written.
Final Words
Thank you all for making it to the end of this week’s post! The last several weeks have been filled with tons of travel, wedding planning, and busy times at work.
I’m happily settling back into my normal rhythm starting again this week! On that note, I’m super excited to announce that I will be participating in my third Substack Live this Saturday with Mick! We plan to discuss authenticity, comfort zones, and life aspirations which should be an amazing conversation!
Wishing you all an amazing week and once again, Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing Moms out there that make the world go round (and a special thank you to my Mom for winning the best Mom award again this year)!
Great article Chase. And I loved the touching tribute to your mother. Treating people and animals with kindness is really and truly a life skill. Very excited you're about to embark on this next big chapter of your life. Marriage is truly a blessing, and despite the planning chaos, you'll be so excited when the big day finally arrives. My wife and I have such distinct memories of our wedding many years ago, back in 2009. It was the perfect day.
I love this perspective (and the grinding groom had me laughing, it’s good). I used to have the tendency to let ‘harder’ chapters define my whole life story, and I very much subscribe to your point that looking at the good instead of dwelling on it is so much more helpful. That quote ‘I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them’ is awesome by the way.