Find the joy in life....

So I bought a new desktop computer in order to be able to return to my stream of consciousness blog posting without my laptop overheating and shutting down unpredictably. Nonetheless, after three months this is literally the first time that I have finally sat down to write something. It is amazing how quickly life takes off and leaves you with little time to devote to your passions unless you specifically allocate the time for them.

Such has been the thrust of my thinking of late. My latest employ has brought me into contact with many small business owners, who ostensibly follow their passions to the fullest, turning them into their primary source of breadwinning. Many are positive about their ventures, extolling their gratitude for how fortunate they have been to have built such a business, and yet others focus more specifically on the great deal of time and dedication that they have spent in building their enterprise. One even went so far as to declare that the income of a business owner may never even reach that of an employee, depending on the company or business, taking into account all of the benefits and vacation time that a typical company offers the typical employee.

Still, I am not completely sold one way or another. I firmly believe that each one us has a passion in this life, discovered or still hidden in the rough. Each one of our life journey guides us either closer to or farther from that which we love in the deepest part of our inmost self. It is to us to read the guideposts or comprehend the signs along the way, and follow them to the place of our greatest joy.

Think about it. What brings you joy in life? When do you feel most alive?

My answer to this question would bring me to discuss several aspects of my life. I love language and the interplay that it creates among individuals and the development of culture that it stimulates. I love volleyball and its interdependency and the positive community that it invariably creates in every area I have encountered it. I love my wife, the family that we have built, and the welcoming, warm environment that we have been able to build, and into which we invite others and extend to the other parts of our respective families.

I love exercise and movement. I love spontaneity and feeling unconstrained by the conventions and norms that govern our society. Countercultural, unrestrained, fearless, open and opinionated; any of these could describe me at different points in my life, and I have not always enjoyed every moment.

I feel most free, and the most joy when I can be who I am in the deepest part of me, and still feel loved.

I also enjoy working with my hands. I have learned that this is more crucial to my passion and joy than I ever could have imagined. I enjoy touch, and it is the strongest amongst my love languages, and thus I suppose that it should not surprise me that this should be integral to the work that I seek. Interestingly enough however, I only now came to think about how important this might be. Like my father, I too enjoy working outside and so thus, maybe it would make sense for me to pick up what he does and take it to the next level? I don't know. I have long shied away from anything remotely tying me to my hometown and family, but perhaps therein lies the answer. This would not mean that I would have to conduct business in Rockford, but could take the industry anywhere I want.

What is life?

Uncertainty I daresay is my greatest nemesis. I have always desired to know for sure, ever since I was a little kid. I looked to everyone else to tell me what's right and what's wrong; good and bad. But following childhood we are thrust into a world in which we are already supposed to know these things. Even if we spent our entire childhoods following someone else's directions, now, of a sudden, we are supposed and expected to know exactly what we want to do for the rest of our lives. Fortunately the United States education system does allow some latitude for us to "figure things out," however I do not know how good this is either. All this to say that I don't know what I want to do. Life seems ever a tension between what is right in front of me and what I am supposed to be doing. Goals are good, but if your mind is limiting you to do what's "right," and you don't really know what that is, how in the world are you supposed to set goals? Yes we can work, and save and build a family, develop a life, find the love of that life, and build something greater together, and yet in all of that are we not just simply following the framework of many years past? Simply repeating history? There is nothing new under the sun, so what are we living for? Certainly not to create new things, do new things, it's all been done before. The context changes, people change, technology "improves," and yet we are just as much people as Adam and Eve and those who witnessed every epoch that life has been in existence. So what do we do with our lives? Work must definitely play a part, and allow us to live in this world, however should it be the prime focus? And what about success, wealth, fame, beauty, all of the things that so many of us spend our whole lives trying to attain. Or is life meant simply for spending, even wasting; obeying the hedonist pleasure principle that we must get all that we can with the limited time that we have. None of these do it for me. Ever before and ever anon there will be that void inside that assures me that there is something more; something greater; something that I of my own free will and volition cannot fill up, cannot satisfy, can only hope to learn more about and then allow to be filled. There are experiences in life that approximate the fullness I seek, but they are often short-lived and would coincide with events promoted by a more hedonistic, or pleasure-driven approach to life. What do I want from this life? There are few things that I want and need, and perhaps for this reason do I run so fast, and attempt to avoid the deeper questions in life. There was a time when I would have indulged myself and pondered these to the n-th degree, wondering, daydreaming, seeking, and to the end that I found some vestige of tranquility in that all things are uncertain in this life in which we live and make our existence. What are the deeper questions in life? How well can I distract myself from reality? How long till I next get drunk? How many days left until the weekend? How soon do I get to see my girlfriend/boyfriend/long-lost friend? I think that we can create our own needs, and dare I say even exaggerate them and allow them to monopolize our time and energy. I am no expert, theologian, philosopher, or genius, but I propose that some of the deeper questions in life are as follows: 1. Who am I? 2. How did I get here? 3. What is my purpose? 4. Who do I love? 5. What do I believe in? 6. What do I want to do with my gifts and talents in the short amount of time that I have been given to be a part of this world? If I can answer just a few of these questions, I will have begun to discover what it means to live!

Musings...about life and passion...

What constitutes passion? For which do we live: that which brings fire to our breast or bread to our table? Can these be one and the same? How does one fit family, socialization, vacation; in short all of the modern constructs into the temporal limitations of a single life? And what if these two coincide? Does this facilitate or exacerbate the issues described above.

Time is of a limited quantity for each one of us, hence lending preciousness to each of the microseconds in which we live and breathe and move, and yet there is at times a desperation that tugs at the heart, inquiring as to whether we have well used the time with which we have been endowed. For me, at times there seems to exist a hard polemic between what we want to and what we believe we should do with these lives of which we are the undeserving and at times unaware beneficiaries. Certainly once said life has been ordained we have the right to live it, however the question comes down to how we live it. How shall we spend the time we have been given. And this lies at the heart of what catapults my mind to a million possibilities on a daily basis.

Work is a necessary part of our daily lives. Modern America would seem to have removed a certain level of responsibility from the worker, and on the contrary imputed a great deal of responsibility on the employer, such that the work itself takes on less focus than the associated benefits, salary, and time off of the employment in question. I would venture that not long ago, these questions would never have entered the minds of those setting off to work. Their concerns lie in securing employment and in doing everything necessary to maintain it, in order to in turn maintain their families. I may even go so far as to suggest that they sought more immediately what it was they truly enjoyed, or phrased differently, followed their respective passions.

Now it would at times seem that we are rather out for all that we can get as far as the fringe benefits and options are concerned, and worry little for what lies at the heart of the labor we undertake in exchange. Much to my own peril, I do at times fear, for something in the heart of me will not rest in these conditions. Be it that I choose a field completely unrelated to the course of study I chose, or even a type of employment that for some particular reason society would consider me to be above, I will give it my best all, until such time as I see that it does not give back to me in the same measure.

In the perception of a thirty-something, oft-employed and seldom fulfilled professional, employee, and coach, I believe that our work must always return to us at least as much as we put into it. Perhaps ironically, this has little to do with the associated pay involved. As long as there is enough to support the life that we live, this particular requirement has been fulfilled and should stop here. I can name off a dozen jobs I have performed for a lot less than the one I have now, where I have had triple the sense of fulfillment.

Is it enough to love your job? Perhaps, but does it also challenge you? Thrust you forward to develop some other part of you that up to this point in your life you have not known? These are the requirements I have for the jobs that I undertake, and as such, perhaps it is not surprising that I have found few that have answered in all that I have asked of them.

Even still, there is the utilitarian aspect of the work that we do. What purpose does it serve? To bring bread to the table and financially support and enable the lives that we lead. Just about any job position can fill this order....especially in the age of the minimum wage. But this does not get to the heart of what it means to discover passion and make it a part of our every day lives. Oh how I wish that I could find such a place to discharge my skills and abilities in a way that would reward the world with my own particular brand of genius.

Genius though, innate or learned? This is an intriguing question to be explored in more detail. Are we all geniuses, inherently capable of bestowing some new knowledge or facilitating some new discovery for the world? One might be so audacious as to say yes, and in so stating clarify that a majority of the world does not exercise their gifts and talents for fear of the very world in which they have been born and live. Those who truly exhibit the genius bestowed upon them are those uninhibited by the fear of judgment by those around them, or what might happen, or what might not happen, or what might have been.

Where do I fall? Somewhere in the mix. From the time of my childhood, I have never quite known my place in the world; and then at some point I came to the startling realization that I am entitled to no place, rather I must make my own place and move forward from there. I think I still find myself limited by this understanding, afraid of what I may or may not achieve if I take said action. Of the few certainties I can put forth, are a passion for language and the human person. A deep understanding of others and a desire to see them succeed. Perhaps these are what I need to fixate on in order to discover the place where my gifts and talents meets the world's needs. The mythical sweet spot, where man finds fulfillment and the world and those around him reap the benefits of a man truly and fully living out his purpose in life.