Certainly Uncertain

Eric Church, has a line in one of his songs that that I love, “my figured out’s never been more confused.” I’ve done nothing but take leaps my whole life and trust that everything would work out just fine. And yet, the older I get, it’s easy to lose sight of those countless leaps and focus more intently on what feels like my glaring inability to leap into whatever awesome experiences my next job/career has in store for me. The work that I’ve put in to learn more about who I am, to understand more about the world, how to be more self-loving and self-accepting, more mindful and more present is admirable, even to me. One of the things that I’m proudest of is my ability to somehow do all of that with no clear path, so many questions and so few answers.

I’ve spent my life thinking that my outgoing personality and desire to meet new people and build relationships, meant that a career in sales would be the best way for me to make a living. What if I was wrong? What if my love of brainstorming and creative ideas meant a career in marketing or my desire to write should have been explored more seriously? ‘What if’ is exhausting and unproductive.

I look back at my career so far and and see that I’ve spent the majority of my career in Financial Services and Technology. How the heck did that happen? Stocks and bonds are not things that I think and talk about in my spare time. I do enjoy the innovation and creativity of the tech world and its potential for noble, social impacts even though I don’t have an engineer’s systematic mind. Did I ever stop and ask myself those most basic yet challenging questions: What do I like to do? What am I good at? What is my ‘why?’ How can I truly help people and make the world a slightly better place while still providing for my family? How could I help a company make or save more money?

Yes. I have asked myself those questions. The most painful thing to admit is that I never took enough time to truly answer them. ‘How much does it pay?’ was an easier question to ask and answer and a more tempting trap to fall into growing up.

So here I am. Happily married, blessed with great kids, family, friends and health and no concrete idea what I’d like to do for work. It’s overwhelming, scary and confusing to not be able to answer those most basic questions at the ripe ol’ age of 49. As Stu Smalley used to say, ‘I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and doggone it, people like me.’ I’ve discovered a lot about myself in this process and learned a lot about life and the world around me too. Most importantly, I will never stop trying. Getting knocked down. Picking myself up. Trying to love myself and others more. Trying to enjoy my life even more. Trying to name, own, improve upon and share my gifts even more in this most precious gift of time called life. Peace.