The Long Way Home...

If we were candid, we would admit that we were handed more than we deserve.

Life has been incalculably hard since Debra was torn from my side. I never knew just how much on her I relied. But each day I see how I've lost my way since she's been gone. In fact, I've never felt so idle and alone. It's crazy how daily things appear, which I didn't see when she was here. But they appear nonetheless, and make me face what I never thought I would --the struggle to find a new love.

Doing so is hard because I'm an introvert, except for when I'm doing my work. But if I'm not speaking or teaching, it's hard for me to be outgoing. But I'm going to have to be if I want to be with someone else. Life is too long to live by myself. Plus, Bruce Springsteen was right when he wrote, "Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart." Listening to his music inspires and sparks. But whenever I consider approaching someone, I talk myself out of it. It's not that I lack confidence; I'm just conscious of all that comes with a relationship. 

Plus, I'm seeking someone special. Everyone is, I guess. At least that's what they say before they settle. Nothing's wrong with settling if you can live with it. But doing so makes it hard to live with yourself. At least that's how I felt when I used to settle for failure. But I hated that feeling more than anything else because I expect more of myself. I want more for others also. So, I wouldn't want anyone to settle for me. On the contrary, I want to be as special to them as they are to me. So, I've spent the last two and a half years in neutral gears, parking yet peeking at prospects. 

I also registered with a few dating sights from instinct. But I don't look at them because they don't sync with my soul. I'm not against them; they just aren't for me. So I keep asking God to lead me accordingly, until I find someone compatibly. Meanwhile some days are maddening because of not having anyone to share them with. I'd probably be dead if I didn't have a purpose and a gift. These keep me going when I find myself rowing towards the edge. Still, it's as if I'm taking the long way home.

OUR CONTRIBUTIONS

 

OUR CONTRIBUTIONS

Our contributions are often invisible but this doesn’t mean that they aren’t valuable. Unfortunately, however, ours is an age wherein value is valid only when it is known, professionally especially.

So, we obsess over who gets the credit rather than on making the contribution that we should, sharing ourselves freely to help others with achieving their goals.

Doing so makes sense; it also makes society insatiable and insensitive to those whose efforts aren't announced on the news or in the next company bulletin.

Unless these souls are strong they will get the sense that they don’t belong or that their contributions don’t matter.

To prevent this, we should be diligent in discovering those hidden heroes whose actions enhance organizational life. They remain unsung only because they are unsought.

As leaders, managers and persons, our job is to promote others and to provoke greatness in all of its degrees. In doing so, we strengthen relationships, energize organizations and encourage these hidden heroes to contribute without feeling unappreciated.

Make it your task to find one today!

PAUSE, CAN YOU?

 

 

Sometimes we must pause, retracting the claws we use to climb towards success, embracing the moment without design or distress. Otherwise we will continue to be anxious and thankless, annoyed daily and hard unnecessarily on ourselves. Unfortunately, however, most of us confuse pausing with passivity.

So we work without rest thinking that doing so will help us to accomplish our goals faster. Yet this logic is toxic, personally, emotionally and relationally, leaving our spouses to wonder and our children to watch as we work ourselves out of meaningful relationships with them because of an undisciplined desire to provide for them.

Moreover, in refusing to pause we forfeit the power of renewal, which would help us achieve our goals by giving us greater clarity and more energy for our tasks. Yet we choose to labor beleaguered by fatigue because of some misguided notion of self-determination. It’s okay to be determined, driven, even, but neither annuls the need to be renewed, to pause and reflect rather than to push and act indefinitely (often detrimentally).

In this regard, pausing isn’t passivity, complacency or indifference. It simply means that we recognize the need to suspend our efforts without accusing ourselves of abandoning them. Besides, we won’t arrive any faster than we do no matter how we construe our efforts. So, relax, reflect and let time do what only it can. Your loved ones will be glad you did!

 

THE END!

 

Though most of us won’t admit it, we are secretly inhibited (and anxious) about our end, desiring to know when it will end. Maybe that’s why we lose ourselves setting goals and courting greatness. Beyond the natural need to nurture our time and talents, we also do so to help maintain our balance, which is more elusive than we admit.

Even so, we are deeply concerned about our end; not, however, simply about the outcome of our efforts but more so about what happens when life has left us. This concern inspired existentialism, fatalism and every other historical ism. It also inspired the wisdom of the sages as revealed through the ages. A sense of mortality instinctively produces such when we allow it to touch us in ways we routinely deny and ignore.

Then we ask ourselves, “What am I doing this for?” Though rhetorical, this question is also rewarding because it forces us to fix our gaze beyond the ways we devise to achieve our goals and the privileges we hope to gain when we succeed. Thus, some people pursue religion for answers; others pursue pleasure instead, seeking to silence the interrogations that inspired Kierkegaard’s dread.

Even so, we want to know about our end, when it will end. Some of us may even want to know how and where it will end. To deny this inquiry as natural is to make detachment inevitable. How can we rightly relate to others when we are indifferent to ourselves about what matters most? In fact the quality of our lives is determined by the degree to which we have embraced our mortality.

Unfortunately, some people become ruthless and aimless in response. Others become ambitious and obsessed. Yet no goal or gain can censor mortality whether or not we respond. The time will come when we will be disarmed and must answer or perhaps ask, as did the Psalmist, “O’ Lord, help me to understand my mortality and the brevity of my live! Let me realize how quickly it will end.” (39:4)

Unlike many of us, William Shakespeare refused to ignore or deny the sovereignty of mortality. In fact he confessed, perhaps as an antidote, “I have immortal longings in me.” Maybe Shakespeare’s willingness to confront his mortality immortalized his writings. Maybe that’s why he was able to embed creatively what he couldn’t embody existentially. Maybe our work would be more enduring if we weren’t in denial about our mortality. Maybe we could increase our force if it were rightly faced.

Aptly embraced, legacies and legends result, depending upon our influence. But even if we never achieve this status, our lives will be more authentic because we confronted our mortality. Maybe facing it would make us more cheerful and charitable also. If we understood just how quickly our lives do end, no matter how long we live, maybe we would be the difference that makes the difference in the lives of others before nature pulls the covers.

 

A TIME

Where we end up doesn't always depend upon how we stand up to pressure, though it helps.

There is a time when we should listen to none. There is a time when wisdom fails and what follows should. There is a time when neither speech nor silence serves. There is a time when all that we know must be forgotten or at least foregone. When this is, however, is hard to say and foolish to force. Even so, it exists.

DON'T

Don't say that I matter just to flatter my fears

Don't tell me I'm special just to lessen my pain

Don't say that you care just to appear concerned,

I'd rather you walk away and say nothing

Than to make me believe I am something

That I'm not,

At least to you.

FRIENDSHIP

Take time to take turns refreshing rather than second-guessing if you should.

We assume we know because others show us a part of themselves. We entertain their presence yet without an awareness of who they are. Meanwhile they hear our hearts and console our hurts, concealing their own, enabling us instead to be strong. Yet when they leave they continue to bleed. We meanwhile leave refreshed because they poured salve into our souls. We never consider just how little we return in proportion. One day, however, time will scatter and we will scold ourselves for ignoring. (10/5/09)

NO HELP

Those who would help must not be heaped with too much ease.

People praise courage but won't support it. They'll nod their heads and nudge you on but won't give a dollar to support your dream. Those who do often have only a dollar to give. But those with the goods sit and grin, seeing if you'll fold before favor falls. This, unfortunately, is the antagonism of greatness. It must endure the scorner's scoff and the dreamer's doubt before flourishing.

CONVICTIONS

Slogans cannot replace convictions.

We can seldom follow paths that contradict our convictions and still succeed. We can try but we will eventually tire of compromise because greatness demands authenticity, and authenticity demands confrontation. Else, we will live from appearance and for approval. But if cells split, it's also natural for paths to divide. Thus, time will eventually dissolve artificial bonds, freeing us to follow our course.

EXHORTATION TO GREATNESS

When we desire life designs accordingly, and supports appropriately our efforts.

No one exhorted Rembrandt as he labored to master the strokes of the brush. Thomas Edison had few fans in his efforts to develop the electric light. When Mary Wollstonecraft published "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" she was ridiculed. These achievers spent much of their lives in obscurity. While others played, they persevered.

Each failure nurtured success. Desire is the catalyst propelling ordinary souls toward extraordinary success. When combined with persistence, success is inevitable. In fact success is seldom realized without persistence. No amount of talent can replace it. If you aren't willing to persist success won't be yours. Ironically, persistence and obscurity overlap.

Today in some dark laboratory or on a dusty schoolyard tomorrow's champions are being chiseled, unknown today yet soon to explode on the scene of success. Know that the years you spend sacrificing will payoff. In life there are no wasted efforts. No one else needs to be aware of the time you spend improving your skills --God knows. He's there with you, applauding your determination. He knows that obscurity is the dressing room in which all achievers must change.

BEING ALONE

Some moments make us measure the worth of our lives. Hence, our tendency to avoid.

We are seldom alone. We strive in fact never to be so. Something about it gouges and creates a gulf where none exists. Even so, we feel it deeply when it descends, especially when it prolongs. Hence, the value of friends. By these we are saved from ourselves. Those without are prone to endure without complaining (or pretending), as many of these require. Even when befriended they refuse to be severed from themselves.