How do you know when something is done? For some things it’s easy like most online games. There’s a goal to achieve and once you’ve achieved it you’re done. Or like school, once the year is done, the course work is done, the degree is done, you’re done. Sometimes it’s not so easy to know. It’s a large question in cooking for all kinds of items, pasta comes to mind although meats can be very problematic and we’re heading towards BBQ season so it will be on people’s minds. It’s a looming issue for artists as well. Many of us have to find our own “done” when it comes to our art or our craft because we could fiddle with it infinitely but that doesn’t help us meet deadlines, make better art, and sometimes takes things from sublime to “Oh, No!”
In life much of what we undertake has no defined or specified end. It can be like porn, we can just know it when we see it, but often we need to choose when to be done or the choosing will be done for us. We can stay in a job too long, not do what we need to move forward and secure our future, then be laid off with no plan B. We can stay in a relationship long after it’s done and suffer the consequences of unhappiness and despair while at the same time seeing the other not realize anything has changed or simply adapt to our new “normal.” We can continue a responsibility long after it has become a burden simply because it’s a habit or we have never considered that there might be an end point to it.
Things run their course. Not everything is meant to last forever. In fact very little is. The only constant in the world is change and that includes us. We’re constantly growing and becoming. Our changing doesn’t stop when we hit puberty, it just becomes less obvious most of the time, spectacular blow ups and catastrophes excepted. That means that we’re in the process of ending as many things as we’re beginning and in the middle of. The more we can be conscious and welcoming and honoring of the endings, entering into them with respect and honesty, the more balanced and fully present we can be for everything else including ourselves.
