The Middle

A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won’t come true. – Ray Evans ​

This rose is just beginning to bloom – no longer a bud yet not fully realized. It can never go back to being a bud, it can only continue to grow into it’s full potential. It is in the middle of the growth process.

When I think about the middle, the first image that comes to mind is an Oreo (might be hunger talking!) – two hard things connected by a squishy middle.  Just like an Oreo, it is easy for me to focus on the outer parts of transition, the past and the future, and avoid the space in between. And yet that is where the sweetness lies.

William Bridges talks talks about the middle space in his work on transitions. While it is the most uncertain time, it is by far the most innovative. If you are not tethered to the past and the future is uncertain, creativity rules. Steve Jobs highlighted the middle space during a commencement speech at Stanford. After he was fired from Apple he used the middle space to start a family, launch Pixar and develop NeXT.
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My lesson today is to just be in this squishy middle space and enjoy the sun and the rain… because that is how one steps into our full potential.