I'll be there

So many of us find ourselves lost at some points in our lives. Most of us feel that being lost is in some way a bad thing - that we made a mistake somewhere. Why does that happen? I'm not qualified to answer that in a scientific way, so here's my personal answer.

Many of us grew up with adults around who always seemed to have answers to our questions or who were able to decide what we should do next, whether it was parents, neighbours, relatives, teachers or whoever influenced us. That gave the impression that we should have a sense of what to do when we grew up. It happened to me; my father was in a stable job that had a sense of responsibility; my school teachers seemed plausible. Gradually I realised that those teachers had flaws - the Chemistry teacher who was an alcoholic and used to go out into the back room to swig whatever he had stashed away there; the Geography teacher who gave up on me because I joined his class after the start of the school year and who couldn't be bothered to help me catch up. I vividly remember him asking me why I was bothering to take an exam in his subject because he thought I'd fail; I took great pleasure in telling him that I'd passed with flying colours the day I met him after the exams. He never spoke to me again; I wasn't sorry.

Eventually I heard the phrase "fake it until you make it". I didn't realise that this phrase summed up the adult experience for most people. I heard one day that one of the best singers I ever saw live would spend the hour before he went on stage, throwing up in the toilet backstage. A former boss of mine said he was happy if 51% of his business decisions worked out well. I was shocked at the time, but gradually I understood.

And so it is with life in general. We all get urges to do something, but then doubts grow: "Can I do it? Should I even try? What if it goes wrong?" And perhaps the worst one of all: "what will other people say?" A coach said to me once: "every scrap of feedback you get tells you more about the person giving you the feedback than about what you are doing". That was really scary at one level because I was often in the situation of being a reviewer of other people's work.

So, how should we live our lives? There isn't a manual; no guru can give you all the answers you seek. I went on a course a long time ago. The course raised all kinds of questions but the ones I remembered were very simple. At each break, the course leader would say "get five great hugs" (this was pre-Covid!). The person running the course told a story that, every time he had something he didn't fancy doing, he would tell himself all the reasons why he shouldn't do it - and start doing it anyway. He would keep on giving himself all these reasons to stop, until he found that he'd done the task.

I remember one day I met someone I named the Queen of Hugs - she had a way of giving someone a hug that felt entirely natural - no squeezing, no awkwardness - it was just like a gentle, warm cuddle. We went on to form a lovely friendship - and we'd still enjoy a hug each time we met. One time, a mutual friend came up to us after a while and said with a big grin on his face - "hey, break it up, you two". We realised we'd been standing in that hug for the best part of 5 minutes, but time didn't matter in that moment.

Some of us are spread out across the world and don't meet for long periods - maybe 10 or 20 years in some cases. The true test is this - can we smile and carry on talking as if nothing had happened in between? As if it had been a few weeks? Can we support those we have never met? If we have been through a shared experience, yes. If we have seen something in that other person that we recognise from our own lives, yes. Holland, Dozier and Holland got it right when they wrote "that song" for the Four Tops - "reach out, I'll be there".