Twenty-four hours, 365 days, and about 78 years is for most, a life. What do we want to experience, be, accomplish, or contribute within this time? For far too long, our “fire in the belly” is nothing more than our pursuit of an elusive salve that we think once held, will soothe the deep wound we each possess. When we do wake up, if we ever wake up, so much has gone on underfoot that we aren’t even sure where we are, what we want, or how to go about the next thing. I know I run the risk of sounding a bit odd (beyond the normal babbling), but just for the sake that there might be others who understand, I will continue.

Sometimes I look at this thing we define as life, these near 44 years, and tons of what one of my friends calls “creative abrasions,” or for the rest of us “hell,” and wonder what is the composite, what is meaningfully still true and with me. I want to believe that who I am is more than just the experiences joined together with me as the common denominator. Where can we set foot that we gain a deepening clarity of identity? I think we all want to be more that just vessels that transfer the sum total of life’s deposits to each moment. There is within me a desire to see how “who I am,” is more about the choices I made to be transformed by my experiences in a generative and developmental way. I want to see how even when it was like planting flowers in the dark, it still contributed to an emerging wholeness that’s uniquely my own, but very much united to something, or someone larger than just me.

Do these thoughts matter in the trenches of another corporate rift that arbitrarily lets 15 year employees go just so they can make the quarterly numbers? You betcha!