A few years ago, Greg and I were standing at the Beirgarten at Epcot when a man asked me to take a picture of him with his group. He explained he was celebrating his 60th birthday at Disney World with his family, and the guys in the group had wandered over to grab a beer while the others were riding Frozen. He wanted a picture of their “guys birthday moment.”

After I took the picture, I asked him what he had learned in his 60 trips around the sun. (His kind approach in asking me to take the picture and his open heart when talking about how much it meant to him to have all his family together celebrating made me curious as to his thoughts.) He explained that he tells his children that no matter where you are or what you are doing, you are not who you will be. Change is the only thing he knows for sure.

We then got into a philosophical discussion about change and growth, success and failure, and saying yes and saying no.

I, of course, was reminded of the words of Maxine Greene. “I am who I am not yet.” She spoke those words at the end of her distinguished career, when she was in her early nineties. She felt she was still becoming who she was meant to be. Those words delicately describe the important idea that we all live in the process of doing and becoming. Of learning and change. Of success and failure. There is inspiration there. There is possibility there. There is hope there. There is resilience there. Wide-awakeness is a conversation we have with ourselves, and our world, as we seek to become who we are not yet.