EVERYTHING CHANGES

 

    Recently I was on vacation in the Caribbean;  one evening at dinner they were playing dance music to attract people in to the restaurant; the song playing had a line “Everything changes” (except the lyrics to the song, I think that was all the only line repeated, over & over.) Anyway that thought connected with another from a Book I am reading A Paradise Built in Hell.  One of the lines in the book is a quote from another book “Man is not looking for a tensionless life, but for a call of potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled.”

Wow, does that sound like your job? Not mine.  Don’t get me wrong my last job at Public Health was eight years, the longest job I’ve had since 20 years in the military. (Which for those of you that have served know, it’s not one long 20-year gig. Its 20 years with the same company with different jobs and locations every 3-5 years).  At Public Health I worked with a great group of Emergency Managers and Planners, we did good work, life was good, but something was missing.  For me I found that as a response team member for ShelterBox.  This volunteer gig, allows me to help those in great need, which is what I have always striven to do in my employed life. This is just more direct and feeds that “potential waiting to be fulfilled”.

Having made the decision to slip the harness of the day to day work world, I am embarking on doing just that.

Which ties to the Kenny Chesney song this morning (Pandora snuck it into my Jimmy Buffet Playlist).  Simply called “Don’t Blink”. It’s really how the speed of life overtakes us.  I’m at the point in life where there are more days behind me than in front of me, so what do I want to do with those days? Those are the answers I am working on while on this island.

I have a pretty fulfilling life without a job; I have my relationship with my wife and partner, my Rotary Club and ShelterBox.

Each one of those fills a different part of my life.  Each is connected to some part of who I am and what I think is good and right in the world.

Together they seem to make me feel as if I am “Being all I can be.”  I guess the rest is just adventure and enjoyment of life, no riding the C Line to work, sitting in long meetings talking about things that should be easy to complete or worrying about things I don’t control. 

So here I go...