Once upon a time, I wanted an iPhone. Badly.
Back then, I was part of a family mobile plan not under my name. And the only time you could purchase or lease a new smartphone was when you were renewing a contract with your service provider.
But there was one loophole: you could get an upgrade sooner if another family member gave up the privilege when it was their turn. And my turn to get an iPhone kept getting passed onto others, whether I liked it or not.
I watched jealously, side eye barely in check, as everyone else in the extended family enjoyed their shiny devices to do whatever they wanted wherever they wanted—while I used an iPod (remember those!) to take pictures and bummed Wi-Fi from Starbucks to send texts. And made calls from a flip phone.
Why am I sharing this story with you?
Because these days, I own my iPhone outright. No one can tell me I can’t have it. Knowing I honored my old self who was stuck in a disempowering place makes me feel a little teary and also warm and gooey inside.
Think of one thing in your life that you now have.
It could be a big thing like an education, a medium thing like an iPhone, or a tiny thing like underwear that doesn’t dig or itch. Or the ability to quit something, like a destructive habit or an obsession with a past event. Perhaps it’s an ongoing conversation with someone you love.
I know if you take a moment, this one thing will emerge, even if the story has blended into the background of your current life as the iPhone story has in mine—I almost forgot about it.
How does it feel to acknowledge your past longing, and see yourself on the other side of it?
I invite you to bask in that feeling.
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Welcome to 2023! I hope you start your journey juiced up from knowing you’re someone who has already performed the miracle of transforming longing into the reality you live.
That’s a pretty spectacular fact about you.
Start this year right here, where you are, and more transformation is bound to follow.
