So I guess it’s that time in my life where questioning where I’m going in the future is of utmost importance to me! I’ve spent the last 34 years plus working at the same job, married to a wonderful woman and together we’ve raised four amazing children! But over the last month, as I watched two of my children graduate from college and listened to the commencement speakers, I start to wonder, am I all that I could have been, have I done all I should have! I think the majority of people when asked this question would probably answer no! Last year, I read Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and in that book she challenged herself to be more happy. It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy, she just wanted more happiness, that’s kinda where I’m at. The question remains, where do I go from here!!
As I’ve written, I’ve spent the last 30 years working at the same job, first because it was interesting and I kept learning different things, and since it was so close to home and the work schedule was flexible it was terrific for raising the kids. I could always go to school for conferences, plays, award ceremonies, athletic events, etc. So the years just flew past, as I worked and worked, I always thought that my hard work would be rewarded at some point. But now that my company has a new owner, he doesn’t have the history with me and it seems that, hell, I’m only there because, well, I’ve always been there! So I think that the first thing that I have to do to decide where to go in the future is to decide what is important to me and what would I like to do with my life. Now the thing is, that’s something I really suck at! Throughout the years I’ve made list after list, and tried to answer question after question to help make that determination and you can see I haven’t gotten very far!! So over the last few days I’ve scoured the web looking for ways to help me make those determinations. One of the blog posts that I read the other day was: 100 questions to inspire rapid self-discovery . . . . . . (and spark your next talk, date, blog post or book.) As I quickly read through the list of questions I really had a hard time answering any of the questions. But I don’t want to give up so I thought, maybe if I pick a question or two a day and try to answer them, while it’s not a rapid self-discovery maybe it would be at least something, So I picked out two questions and tried to think about them while straightening the market shelves at Target the other night! Here’s the first question:
What fictional character would you like to have tea with??
Hum, the Mad Hatter, no not really. The first person that popped into my head was James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux and then Karin Slaughter’s Sara Litton, but I thought I don’t really think I’d learn much or they would be that interesting to talk with, Then I thought, well, how about Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon, he would be pretty cool to talk with or Steve Berry’ Cotton Malone and finally there’s Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon. Allon would be mostly to talk about the art restoration work that he does and not his work for Israeli intelligence. The last one is who I really think I’d like to have tea with and that would be Henry Meloux, an elderly Native American and Cork O’ Connor’s spiritual advisor in William Kent Krueger’s great series!! I think he would be really an exact fit for me, and maybe he could guide me on my path to finding what out what I want, and should be doing with the rest of my life!!
So how would anybody else answer that question? Question 2 was Who is on your Panel of Imaginary Mentors?? hum any answers for that one??
