Milestones are occasions where we celebrate significant change. In the bigger picture, they are just one briefly passing moment in a long process that begins before and continues after:

“Ocean waves begin their journey thousands of miles out at sea. Their form, size, and shape come from the speed of prevailing winds in the atmosphere, the power of currents hidden beneath the sea, and their long “fetch”––the distance between a wave’s point of origin and its point of arrival….Events that seem to appear in the present from out of nowhere in actuality have a long history behind them.”  ~ George Lipsitz, Footsteps In The Dark.

We are an energy presence, a wave, created by everything we choose and do and feel and think. We are initiated into this sea by our childhood. How we choose to grow from that is what creates our adulthood. Everyone around us is also creating a personal energy field. These fields are all bumping into each other, which builds a cultural field. We’re also molded by the energies of Nature. Everything is in constant interplay. The only part that we control is what we ourselves embody and how we respond.

We might reach a milestone, for example, and find that it’s not exactly what we thought it would be. Everything before it pointed to a certain outcome, but when we get there we realize the journey to it has changed us. We have a new outlook. We have the opportunity to step into a whole new arena, a space we wouldn’t have arrived at without riding the previous wave in to shore.

This is why it’s so important to be intentional. Intention isn’t about ramming goals into a calendar. Intention is about embodying the energy qualities that we want to feel when we arrive at our milestone, and then living in that field. Because that field is the energy we will inhabit when our milestone arrives and passes and we find ourselves riding the next wave.