Wish You Were Here...
Who's to say if we're okay or if we aren't, I suppose the answer is in our own hands. Yesterday, I looked into my mirror and was asked if I was okay or not, a bit shocked I stared back and replied, "Am I okay"? The truth is I think I'm doing a decent job, eight days into the New Year, of staying low. I feel as though I'm starting to sound like a broken record, then again maybe just maybe I'm questioning myself enough until I know where the truth resides in all of this stuff.
Today, my buddy Sean said something about life moving by us and he questioned why all the work if one cannot enjoy the downtime. Some time back, something broke within me, it might have been the time I was in Rome and noticed an elderly couple ascending the steps of the Vatican, to which I paused and wondered if they'd worked their entire lives to see the site for the first time or if this was their hundredth time. The truth is the number didn't really count is was more along the lines of Sean's question, the why do we do all of this.
In 2005, I was fired from a corporate job; I've written briefly about this in the past, though the wound still feels fresh if I allow my mind to drift back to the that time. I worked very hard in order to get an opportunity to be where I was, it was a dream, there were long days and nights within an office which was broken. The boss I had at the time, would boast about his trips to Napa, CA, his house, and even his car, never his wife or child though, it was always stuff. I credit that firing, though not merited, with being the catalyst to who I am today.
I've read a few books throughout the years but I've NEVER had a mentor, a person that has taken their arms and placed them around me in order to say, "Look kid, I see potential in you, let's get you to point Z on this life map". It's strange because there are a million people who claim to have mentors and then there's little ol' me, who holds onto the claim that life is what we make it. The idea of being an outcast within the corporate world is something that is real to me; I do not try to fit into a place that is much like cookie dough, turning out the same flavors day in and day out within an ever spinning work oven so to speak. Diversity is a word, a false floor on which money is made and acronyms are created in order to make people feel accepted. But in the end, why all of the work to create false platforms, false feelings of hope?
IF not for being fired, the only time I've been in any type of 'work trouble", I would not have understood that there's a world outside of the office which needed to be explored, let alone a life that needed to be watered routinely. I'm not saying screw work and throw caution to the wind but I am saying screw work and plant your seeds within the ground, today. We can all be replaced and one day soon we all will be replaced by systems which run algorithms and other things which humans cannot do. The truth is, if you take a step back, robots cannot take breaks, laugh, have emotions, or be human... So why try to work like a robot and work yourself to death.
This year, you'll find me in random places, doing random things; I hope you understand that I'll be within the moment and only share after I've taken it all in, for us all.
I WISH YOU WERE HERE beside me, listening to how the waves crashed and even to the sound of the birds flying around the sea; I'll leave you a visual.
"I'm out here, come find me, and hopefully find yourself too..."