Every Good Thing Must Come to an End

I like to watch what most guys call, “chick flicks.” If you don’t like a good romantic movie, stop reading now because this story is the “chick flick” of Medium stories. Hope Floats, starring Sandra Bullock, is not one of my favorite chick flicks (for me it’s The Notebook) but she does have a compelling line in the movie. She says, “Beginnings are scary. Endings are sad. But it’s what happens in the middle that matters most.” That is one of the truest lines in life.

I like to have new beginnings. New trails, new people, new cars, new friendships and new roads to navigate. Just to name a few. Is there a little anxiety or fear of beginning something new? Sure. For some people, it’s too overwhelming and so they stick to what’s comfortable. It’s safe there. It’s easier there, both in action and in thought. And sometimes we may start something that just isn’t for us. For me, that was attempting to segway from skiing to snowboarding…major fail. We will revisit this again in a minute, but if you don’t have new beginnings, you don’t have new experiences, which limits your vision and perspective on the world.

Endings are really what this story is about. Endings are hard. Whether they are personal (I’ve been there, a lot) or professional, they can hurt. There’s often finger pointing, heels being dug in, and strong opinions on one side or the other. Some people have the ability to end things on the same page about moving in different directions. Those people deserve a lot of credit, because it requires both sides to swallow pride and move forward for the greater good of each person individually, and that relationship on a collective level. I’ve found there is always one single common denominator in every single ending. You’ll have to read for another 60 seconds to find out what that one thing is.

According to Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats, the middle matters the most. Truth be told, I wish the the middle would’ve mattered a little more to the writers of that movie, because it was awful. I digress.

But the middle is the most important part of any good thing. Job, Marriage, Workouts, etc. The lone exception to this is a middle reliever in Major League Baseball. Though if you’re reading this article, you likely don’t understand what that means, again, I digress. The middle sets the stage for the outcome. Or, if you’re really good at life, you never leave the middle because you realize you’re on a beautiful journey, and journey’s don’t end! The middle is where you create the memories, where you fight through the ups and downs, where you progress or regress, where you build empires, build networks, it’s where you serve others because you’re thinking about yourself a little less than at the beginning or at the end. However, the middle is where you also develop the one thing, THE SINGLE THING, that comes with every ending.

That one thing…is regret!

Every ending comes with regret. In relationships it sounds like, “what could I have done different?” Or “what’s wrong with me?” Or my personal favorite, “why didn’t I follow my intuition and act on it when I felt like something was wrong!” In professional settings it sounds like many of the same things mentioned above simply framed a little differently. This is a scenario that I went through recently. And though the relationship ended civilly, with both parties feeling like we needed to pivot and make a move in a different direction that didn’t involve the other, I still had regret. My regret was mostly based on what I could have done different? And all the memories, situations and times I think I could have done something different…they all came from the middle! Not the beginning, and not the end.

There weren’t blatant mistakes made by either side, it was simply differing views. It was also the evolution of both individuals involved, perhaps, not moving in similar directions. Were there factors on the other side I’m still not aware of that may have contributed? I’m sure there were. But the same is true of me and the other individual not being aware of some major strides being made in a particular area of my own life. You never fully know what’s going on with the other side, EVER. So it’s important to respect that space and be at peace they’re moving elsewhere. Essentially, you want to be grateful for the learning experience and good times that you did have, the money you made, the places you went, and anything else that was created in the middle for you.

You can substitute personal or professional and use them anyplace in this story and the story is still true. All good things must come to an end. But you still have YOU!