Hannah Jones/Winonan
The cluster of people seated in a lecture classroom in Gildemeister last Wednesday evening couldn’t have been a more disparate crowd.
All of them were at drastically different stages in life, with different goals, different desires, and different reasons for being there, but as they were about to find out as the key speaker took the floor, they all had something in common.
Carol Anderson, a tall, willowy woman with draping purple scarves and graceful, flowing gestures to go with her every word, was 55 years old when she began to look for her life’s true calling. After eighteen years working in Gildemeister Hall as the Dean of Education at Winona State, she took an early retirement and realized for the first time that something was not quite right.
“I realized that [after retiring] I did not miss a thing,” she said. “It wasn’t that the job was bad, it was just that I was done with that part of my life.” It would be seven more years before Anderson would return to Winona State, this time with a message to share with the crowd that gathered for her CLASP presentation: “Finding Your Way to Purpose and Passion.”
Anderson realized only after years of “prioritizing” her career above all else that daily life had left her physically and emotionally exhausted. She spent every day with a distinct pressure on her chest and a burden on her shoulders that only lifted when she took time to examine her life and realize what she had been doing for years had been draining her, leaving a visceral toll on her body and mind. She advised her audience to be watchful for signs of the same symptoms. “Ask your heart if this is something you should be doing,” she urged. If the answer is “no,” then it may be time to evaluate your life and find your true passion.
Finding passion, unfortunately, is not always easy. As Anderson explained, often what we feel we “should” do doesn’t necessarily align with what we were meant to do.
In Anderson’s case, answers came to her from her childhood. She explained that childhood is when we are our most authentic, true selves, unmolded by societal expectations or conformity. Her most vivid memories from her youth were spent talking to groups of people, as far back as she could recall. Teaching, she realized, was her passion. She came out of her first retirement and dedicated herself to working with individuals in “their second half of life,” like her.
Anderson turned to her audience, a hodgepodge crew that ranged from college freshmen to adults long into their own retirements. What, she asked, could we remember from when we were young? What could we spend hours on end doing? Gradually, one by one, the spectators smiled, drifting back and opening up.
A woman in the middle row said when she was young, she used to look through Sears catalogues, shopping for her imaginary husband and children. A girl in the back said she spent her happiest moments talking with her little brother. A woman next to me confessed that she loved harmonizing in choir. Anderson took stock of the dreamy remnants of childhood nostalgia with a nod of her head, and asked the question that tied all of us together. “What is it that brings life to you?”
Anderson left all of us thinking back to our childhood dreams, our dearest pastimes and the sometimes-inflexible rigidity of our career paths. After choosing a college, choosing a major, choosing a profession and choosing a safe, well-established life, she imparted three far simpler imperatives around which to structure our lives:
1.Trust yourself unconditionally.
2.Remember; you cannot make a mistake.
3.Know that you will have what you need when you need it.
Perhaps, when it all comes down to it, that’s all we really need to know: what Anderson says our hearts know already.
Contact Hannah at [email protected]
