Retrospective

I decided to take a job this week at Wells Fargo doing pretty much what I was doing before I left for Colorado. It was a difficult decision. It caused me to think about everything that has brought me to this point and made me question if I was falling back toward some place I had purposely left. So I decided to try and summarize for myself where I was, how I got here, and what all this means.

Quite a few years ago (5,6?) I started feeling that I was meant to do more with my life. Many people would call this a mid-life crisis, I like to call it a life awakening. I wasn't afraid of dying or not leaving a legacy. I didn't want a young wife to have children with or a new car to make me feel younger. I simply had a sense, intuitive feeling, that there was something more I should be doing with my life. This wasn't a new feeling. I have had it since I was 15. But work, family, life helped me ignore it.

I decided I couldn't do that anymore. But where could I start? I again felt an answer. Let go. I wasn't sure what that meant, but I started to try and let go of my fears about life and work, family, relationships. This letting go is what finally led me to try AmeriCorp.

The experience in Colorado taught me many things. But the most important I believe is it taught me to recognize and be thankful for the blessings in my life every day. Being caught in the day to day operation of life it was easy to lose sight of how blessed I really was. My parents, family, childhood, education, wife, children, friends, life itself. By letting go I discovered how much I really had. This understanding of blessing led me to many other thoughts. How much we can be in control of how we feel and look at life and the beginnings of a belief in something that binds us all together. When I left Colorado, I felt that I had successfully let go, but my intuition was telling me my next step was to expand.

So what did expand mean? Looking back I realize that I was pushing that definition to what I believe it meant. I felt I had to do more things, meet more people, discover new ideas. But an interesting thing happened. I went back to work. I got caught up again in day to day trivialities and forgot to count my blessings. Expansion became something I would do later once I settled in. I found different justifications for this, but the reality is that I didn't know what to do.

Well, the job offering a few weeks ago pulled it together for me. Another little slap. It made me stop and count my blessings again. At the same time I discovered the Lake Harriet Spiritual Community, a non-denominational, spirit seeking group of people. There are many beliefs reflected there and all are respected.

But what struck me most were the words I heard spoken Sunday that you are not alone. The concept taught in almost every religion that Spirit, God, Nature, is accessible to you always. I understood then that expand meant for me (at least at this moment in life) to expand inwardly, understand Spirit within myself.

And that is where I stand today. I am going to explore Spirit within my own heart and life. I have no idea where that will lead me. But I am more at peace now than I have been in many years. I somehow feel that I have finally put myself in a place that I can actually hear. So does the job at Wells Fargo mean I gave up on my quest. No. I view life differently than I did 5 years ago. And anyway, do any of us really have a choice to give up on our life journey? Eventually it will end, but even that we can't predict. Coming to peace with the twists and turns of our life is really the challenge, not trying to keep the road straight.

Love you all (all 1 or 2 who read this). I hope to write a bit more frequently.