Skip to main content

Life is what happens while you're distracted

Mental clutter is the bain of a successful career. It's what distracts you from your primary purpose as you busily get things done. You suddenly look up and it's November 12th or something and you wonder where the year went and why as it's Thanksgiving, you're thinking of what to give thanks for.

The design of a year's action plan ought to have enough buffer to allow life's random form to take place. And yet it should move forward in a way that serves your personal growth and development in ways that authentically align with your purpose on earth. What you feel connects you to truth is worth holding onto as a rudder for life. Evenso, after chats with Mother, I've also learned that values must be pliable enough to flex to new knowledge you gain as you travel. There's nothing more foolhardy than holding on to old beliefs that no longer serve you. I think it's suicidal.

That means, that you do the work of self introspection. That delicate work of journalling, dreaming, going for walks along the fall leaves and mapping in your mind, among the moon and the stars a vision for your life. Include thoughts about who travels alongside you. Deliberately include who supports and encourages you and how you'll stay close to them. And be clear with them about your dreams. Let them help you moderate your action plan so it's realistic and allows you to be truly human. And we must run new ideas as they shape by trusted others outside our brains to check ourselves for mad exursions.

To laugh, play, sleep, eat good food and exercise is worthwhile. It tempers our drive to outwit the world, and allows us to live well on the journey. Sometimes, that's all there really is. There may be no there there.

So if, as I do, you feel this year has moved you little forward on the hunt for some great achievement, know this: life is sometimes more about living, than winning or collecting trophies and toys. If I measure the living I've done this year, I am enormously blessed and fortunate, humbly grateful. If I count based on promotions, and certifications, raises and project completions, I could fall into a worthless depression.

So I'm choosing to count as a success, a year well lived. And somehow I'll find a way to write a decent self-appraisal. One about treading water well.

Work and live well.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Writing through this

i will be ok this is so scary -- towards the end of the work day, i found out from my brother that San Francisco is going into almost lockdown. and David and I finished up the essential work items and took a break to get groceries for 2 weeks. NYC could be next. we're now prepared but worried about how this will impact our lives. we both treasure exercise -- cycling, long walks -- what if all that is essentially curbed? we came back, i took care of work pop ups and now am back to my personal life. i'm learning about this work from home thing that can take over all the hours in a paranoid panic of overdoing. i'm learning to slow down after the work day. allow the sunset to be the curtain to a focus on work and doing, and to shift to relax, let go, release the day. this will pass. we will be ok. we do the best we can and let go. the rest is up to something larger than all of us.

It's been forever

And nothing significant has changed. Except, now I go back to Colgate to speak. And I'm terrified all over again, but now I'm swamped by this fear that I'm totally inadequate, balanced by my mother's encouragement to go with my head held high. She's written a book, and part of me feels drawn to call Jen and get it published. How come I never wrote my book? Maybe I can help her "finish" hers. But I'm talking about core values. And I'm thinking, but what kind of role model am I? OK, I've got thoughts about values and how to apply them, but I'm a coordinator...at 38 years old. Most of my classmates from Colgate are CEO's, WTF do I know about leadership? If they all got up in the middle of it, (if they showed up at all), and pointed at me and started laughing Carrie-style, I wouldn't blame them and I wouldn't telekinesis or Avada Kedavra because, they'd be right. I have nothing to offer but theory and speculation about ...

A Profitable Man

How do you define a successful life? I think, post-holidays, this idea of what this year should be comes to mind. What if it's in the quality of sleep each night, and the love you enjoy from those closest to you? What if any profit is really from having enough time, money, and other stuff to enjoy the love around you? Then, how do the actions you take this year, this month, this week align with that vision you have for yourself as a viable human being and then your career? Reminder: we spend the most time at work. How does work time move the dial forward for the total being of you. If it goes against, it detracts from what you want to be in the world. Is that a worthy sacrifice? Challenge. Write about it this year. Talk with trusted friends. If you need to adjust the work you do: mold the current work, find a new position within the current organization, or seek new frontiers, do it, for life is short and the years they roll along quickly. Happy New Year. Live and Work ...