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A Gift of Wisdom on My 77th Birthday: Finding Your Next Right Step

As I celebrate my 77th birthday, I find myself reflecting on the most meaningful gifts life has given me. This year, I want to give you something rather than receive—something I’ve discovered in my most difficult times:

wisdom that your hardest challenges
hold the key to your next step toward a flourishing life.

If you feel like the weight of life is pressing down on you, let me assure you: you are not alone. I want to share two profound truths that have guided me through my own darkest moments:

“Nothing that feels bad is ever the last step.”
“Every bad feeling is potential energy toward a more right way of being, if you give it space to move toward its rightness.”

These words, from Eugene Gendlin, have changed how I see the struggles we all face. They reveal a powerful truth:

your most painful moments are not endings;

they are beginnings waiting to be embraced.

Your Struggles Are the Door to Transformation

Think about the problems in your life that feel utterly hopeless—the ones you believe are the most intractable, the most impossible to solve.

Those very struggles are not obstacles to your growth;

they are the exact places where transformation is waiting to happen.

It’s hard to see this when you’re in the thick of it. You might feel overwhelmed, stuck, or defeated. But here’s the gift I’ve come to cherish:

the stuckness itself contains the next step.

You Don’t Have to Force or Fix It

One of the most freeing things I’ve learned is that you don’t need to force solutions. Trying to fix, figure out, or force something to change often keeps it stuck. Instead, what’s needed is something gentler:

Turning toward the pain instead of away from it.
Gathering it close, with kindness and curiosity.
Trusting that the “impossible” holds its own wisdom, ready to untangle itself.

When you bring a compassionate awareness to those stuck places, something miraculous begins to happen: the next right step reveals itself. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve felt stuck or how impossible it seems. The path forward is still waiting for you.

Leaning Into What Feels Bad

Transformation happens when we learn to lean toward what feels bad, rather than resist it. I know this isn’t easy. But here’s the truth I’ve found time and again:

what feels painful is full of potential energy.

It’s waiting to move you into a more aligned, flourishing version of your life.

When you give your pain the attention and space it needs, it begins to shift. The heaviness lifts. Solutions unfold. You discover the strength, wisdom, and clarity that have been inside you all along.

The Gift I Want You to Remember

As you move through your life—through the joyful moments and the challenging ones—remember this:

Nothing that feels bad is ever the last step.
Your most difficult places hold the key to your growth.
The next step is always possible, no matter how stuck you feel.

So on this, my 77th birthday, I invite you to look at your struggles in a new light. Instead of seeing them as enemies, see them as teachers. Instead of feeling defeated, feel curious. Because in the very spot that feels most stuck, you will find the “next right step” that will move you closer to a life of joy, fulfillment, and transformation.

This is my gift to you:

the knowing that you are capable,

the belief that change is possible,

and the encouragement to keep leaning

toward the life that is waiting for you.

With gratitude and hope,

Your Fellow Traveler on the Journey