structure

all our lives, we participate in a certain sort of structure imposed from the outside.  most of this is extremely helpful.  we are born into a family structure.  the structure of traffic laws keeps us safe while we cross the street, and while we grow up and become drivers.  the education system, if we follow it, keeps us moving through its structure of grade school, middle school, high school, (applications), college, (applications), internships, (applications), (interviews), jobs.

as an upper-middle-class college grad from a good school with an engineering degree and a corporate job, i felt a continuing structure imposed socially.  i worked hard at the office.  i went out to bars for happy hours and football games with coworkers and friends.  i went to the gym in the morning.  i ordered thai food and watched tv with my roommates. i went out on dates.  etc.  and it was fun! and the structure was helpful, again, for propelling me in that life/career path.

but now, i've decided i want my life to be about movement and creativity and growth and gratitude.  so if i'm looking at that big picture, the old structure doesn't necessarily get me there.  the 18-years-old-fresh-face-in-NYC-auditioning-daily structure doesn't really apply to me, either.  or even the 25-years-old-starving-artist-waiting-tables structure.  and secretly i think none of us actually fit into a structure.  we have to choose the parts of it that are helpful and throw out the rest.

i have a very dear friend who's currently in africa for the peace corps, and she's the one who illuminated this idea of structure for me when she said that life right now is about creating a structure for oneself instead of relying on the structure imposed socially and culturally by the well-meaning society.

there are little examples of creating one's own structure every day.  for example: i'm feeling stressed, so i write a to-do list.  this is structure.  then i don't have to think about anything, i just work my way through my list.  working within a structure that i set up allows freedom from stress and "keeping it all together."  for a second example: i'm in a choreography class, and the professor gives us some wacky assignment about movement.  i'm not worried about creating something artistic or my style as an artist, i just do my "assignment." and voila, i come up with something more creative than i ever would have thought of if you just locked me in a dance studio.  by inserting myself as subject to the structure, i allow freedom for creative movement.

our work now, then, is to create a big-picture "structure" for our lives, to free us up to live meaningfully and creatively, in africa, in new york, in our families, in our jobs.  piece of cake!  haha.

... something to work on.