Mourning is Complicated
I’ve spent my entire career plowing ahead. Sometimes at 100 mph, sometimes at 1,000 mph. As in my personal life, plowing ahead without a reasonable respect for the happenings around you is a recipe for regret. Mourning denied does not disappear. It hangs around, waiting patiently. It waits and waits and waits until you catch yourself looking at a colleague’s breadcrumbs, and wonder, “What if…?”
Being resilient is one thing. But denying the essence of an emotion for the sake of expediency is a really bad idea. I know it’s a bad idea because of long-service.
The Stoics said that a person should not try to measure oneself against another, instead to concern oneself with the present moment, and acknowledge the truth in the statement “You could leave life right now.”
Yet, that doesn’t mean to deny feelings and emotions that would tend to get in the way of “progress.” Rather, one ought to acknowledge the reality of the emotion, respect it, observe how its control of ones actions wanes, and return to the work that one has chosen to complete.
The length of time in those stages is indeterminate. Yet some time needs to be spent in each, lest the emotion find a way to hang out, waiting, waiting, waiting.
[I’m feeling a little better already.]