What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
̶ T.S. Eliot
By Krista Hoffer
GCU Office of Student Care
#Askingforafriend
Most of us misunderstand endings in our life.
We take them too seriously … or not seriously enough.
We take them too seriously by confusing them with finality — that’s it, all over, finished!
We see them as something without sequel, forgetting they are the first phase of the transition process and a precondition of self-renewal.
At the same time, we fail to take them seriously enough. Just because they scare us, we try to avoid them.
An ending cannot happen without a beginning. Each of you reading this can relate in some way or another. You are in the middle of preparing for an end of something, somewhere.
Some of us might feel this disidentification looming, as if to say the ending means you lose a part of yourself as well.
Others feels it as a loss of a role that prescribed their behavior and made them readily identifiable, while still others feel the lack of a familiar and identifying label.
One way or another, most people in transition have the experience of not being quite sure who they are, where they are going or what they want.
Maybe you are brought to a place where you are no longer presently engaged as a college athlete, leader, professor, spouse or student. Without that, do you know who you are?
Whether you are approaching the end of a job, living situation, career, class, relationship, season – we all can relate to endings in sight. How can you honor this season you are in, the ending to come, and how is it a foundational piece for a new beginning to emerge?
Allow yourself space to grieve the end, thank it for how it brought you here and get excited for the beginning to unfold before you.
As you have probably heard before, “When one door closes, another opens.” An ending of something is not an end of you. It is your beginning.
