In Five Years Time

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 29  (This is part of a weekly serial started on Michaelmas 2023. To see the other entries, please see the post linked HERE and scroll down to the bottom for individual links)

Do you know where you’ll be in five years time?

Some of us have plans we hope to fulfill, goals we’d like to reach, an end game so to speak. But have you ever wondered if having a firmly set vision for ourselves keeps us away from other possibilities and distracted from our potential?

I often wonder this.

While I’ve always got something (or multiple somethings!) I’m striving towards, I rarely have set goals with an expiration date. I’m more of a hope-er, a “let’s see what happens”-er. As I make my way through my handwork training, I have lots of people assuming that I’ll go teach in a school once I’ve completed my certification. But I only have a whisper of what I’ve thought I might do and am keeping all doors open. I stand at the center of endless possibilities. Including teaching in a school. It is only a two year program, but SO many things can happen in two years. Who knows where the days will lead me!

While this isn’t a new development in my personality, it is one that I fought against for most of my young adulthood. As a person who liked the security of planning, I was an anxious person with a free spirit. Quite the conflict!! So I planned and set goals, but would also take opportunity when it came, even if meant changing course. I knew if I refused to see a road outside of the one I was working to pave, I wouldn’t be able to see the whole picture. I knew keeping my eyes glued to my goal created blinders. It was hard to fight against the comfort of a known future!

As I got older and more comfortable rolling with the punches life has a habit of administering, it became easier to branch out. Pave multiple roads with pebbles instead of only one with concrete, shall we say. Experience in life helped me feel more comfortable accepting my ability to meet change, as well as the universe’s ability to provide options.

This connects well with last week’s post about seeing potential to be developed instead of only focusing on what is needed to fit into existing societal structure. And I’d like to expand on that theme with this quote from the lecture series Human Values in Education:

Today, our teachers have no idea what will be good for the Waldorf School five years later, because, during those years, they will learn much, and from that knowledge they will have to reassess what is or is not correct. This is why Waldorf schools are indifferent toward associations for school reform and what they consider important. Educational matters cannot be determined intellectually; they should arise only from the experience of teaching.”

I’d say that it isn’t only educational matters that cannot be determined only intellectually. It isn’t only schools that should be careful about planning five years down the road. When you are always looking ahead, you miss what is happening now.

This quote left me with questions:

In education and homeschooling, how can we meet our children while recognizing that in five years time the world will be a different place? How does that change our view of what education is?

In our personal life, how can we meet our goals and desires with a heart that is open enough to recognize the bends might actually be the path?

Who is invited to our circle of “college of teachers” for both our children and our selves? Who are we bouncing ideas off, gaining perspective from, sharing our experiences with? Are they worthy of and open to the role? How are we supporting our goals, continuing to strive, but balancing the forces that might nudge us in a different direction? Who are we lending our ear to and what are they saying? How we do discern ideas shared that are built from fear and not freedom?

Something to ponder.

Until next time,
Marina