I appreciate Melissa Kirsch, who writes The Morning, the Saturday edition of the daily newsletter from The New York Times. We typically expect a simple list of news stories (though the news is hardly simple), but she often begins the Saturday newsletter with a more reflective tone.
Over the weekend, she wrote about Serena Williams, who returned to Grand Slam singles after four years. When she previously stepped away from tennis, she shared that she had never liked the word “retirement. Instead, she said, “I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”
That’s a different way to frame transitions and change.
When we evolve toward something or away from something, we can open — and be opened — to new possibilities. And because we haven’t necessarily closed a door, we might also be able to evolve back, but as people who have been shaped by the time away.
Melissa Kirsch suggested making a simple list:
What are you evolving away from?
What are you evolving toward?
I appreciate that this isn’t simply a way of naming endings and future goals, as though one is completely finished and the other has not yet begun. In both directions, evolution is a process.
So how would you answer those questions? What are a few things you’re evolving away from? And what are a few things you’re evolving toward?
—Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 