It's been almost three years since I last posted anything. Wow. It's funny how life just happens while you're waiting for bigger and better things to come around.
Not to rip off a John Lennon quote or anything, but it seems to be increasingly true as I, along with my peer group, inch towards the end of the foundation-building twenties and into the ambivalent thirties. It's difficult to fathom how years seem to tick off like college semesters now that our primary metric for measuring the march of time involves events that only come around once a year. Before, in the embrace of academia, the beginning and ending of the semesters signaled the opportunity for rebirth, rededication, and renewal. The opportunity to slough off the dead skin of mediocre academic performance, relationships gone wrong, and financial distress was always as near as the next semester.
Now that my life is metered by the four seasons, and so-called progress is marked by the passing of various holidays and annual traditions, I find myself awash in a paucity of opportunities for reflection and re-evaluation of my life, my dreams, my goals, and my own personal progress towards...well, whatever it is I'm supposed to be marching towards.
Perhaps the transition into this annualized existence has allowed me to become more lazy in my re-evaluation of my status quo. Mind you, I have no problem getting lost inside my head, but to sit down and actually evaluate- on paper, in prayer, out loud- the 'state of my state' is a process that has historically fallen by the wayside. I think my primary excuse for discarding this evaluative opportunity revolves around a lurking suspicion that any bar charts or chi-squared analyses plotting my progress would invariably leave me feeling inadequately advanced compared to the "shoulds" of my twenties.
Lest this post fall into yet another well of progress-less introspection, I'll leave with this swing thought: if we are subjected to annual or semi-annual or quarterly reviews in our places of employment, then how much more important should it be to engage in a similar process in our own personal spheres? Given how we are becoming increasingly pulled into the pitfall of defining our progress in life through our progress in advancing up some sort of career ladder, it should be worth the effort to step back and do some mental homework...an analysis that isn't published on company letterhead, but one rather that comes from within, and takes an account of what our dreams are, what our personal goals are, where our spiritual pulse is at, and what we're actively doing to progress along in those dreams and goals, and where our spirits are heading.
Your boss doesn't get to read this status report, but it may be a worthwile exercise to share with a friend, a spouse, or someone you implicitly trust.
...someone you are comfortable enough to have in the room while folding your clean laundry...that's my personal metric...
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