Facing Your Fears

I have spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out what my purpose in life is. I know that is kind of a cliche statement. Doing a Google search for the phrase "discover your life purpose," I found there were 56,400,000 results.

To give a little perspective, Google reports that there are 40,000 searches per second or 3.5 billion searches per day. At a rate of 40,000 searches per second, it would take 23.5 minutes for those Google searches for the term "discover your life purpose."

Within the past week, there are 94 pages of Google results for articles with the phrase "life purpose" in the title. You can find articles on sites from Success Magazine, Under 30 CEO, Youtube videos, Facebook groups and articles by others like me who are simply interested in the subject. All within the past week.

In another view, Amazon lists 199,864 books on the subject of life purpose. On the much more general term "self-help," Amazon lists 397,671 books. In other words, based on the search alone half of the self-help books on Amazon deal with your life purpose.

Clearly, a lot of people are searching--and writing--about life purpose.

Yet, most of the people I talk to struggle mightily to express what their life purpose is. To be honest, most people I ask don't have any idea what their life purpose is let alone being able to verbalize what it is.

As I've said elsewhere a lot of us can talk about life and purpose in a general sense. Most of us would agree that life is about being happy, about doing good, about helping others, etc. As Stephen Covey put it, "to learn, to love, to leave a legacy."

Yet, you start digging any depth below these generalities and you get a lot of bewildered looks.

My Purpose

I have spent much of the past two years trying to discover and articulate what my purpose is. I think I have distilled my purpose down to the point where I know that it is about helping others live their lives more abundantly. For me, that is what life is really about in general.

Given the fact that so few people can articulate their own life purpose, I have to wonder if all those articles and books that have been written provide any clarity for those seeking it.

What I am really concerned about, and have been stymied by, is much more personal for me. Do I have anything unique or insightful to share about living life more abundantly. With all the competition and resources that are out there already, do I stand a chance of being able make a difference.

To be honest, I am a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of helping others recognize their purpose and to be empowered to pursue it. If I, who has spent the time to figure out my purpose and how to share it, get stymied by the prospect of the task, how can I help others live life more abundantly.

I have as Joseph Campbell alludes to been afraid to enter the cave where my treasure lies because I am afraid of what else I may find in there. Am I up to the task?

Do I dare enter the cave?

Completing a post on my quotes website about taking chances, I came across many motivational sayings. Of those, I find a quote by Jack Canfield appropriate, "Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try."

With that in mind, I am reminded of the parable about a man who was walking along a beach after a storm. On the beach, were thousands of starfish. The young man scurried about the beach throwing starfish back into the ocean. Another man approached him asked what the young man was doing.

The young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one.”

I may not be able to make all the difference that the world needs, but perhaps I can make a difference to one here and one there. If nothing else, I can at least try.

Adventures on the Oregon Trail

The struggles we experienced on our return from Salt Lake City to our home in Tacoma, reminded me of those who traveled the Oregon Trail some 150 years ago.

Our struggles weren't as significant or as dramatic as what the early pioneers faced, but there were significant parallels.

Cholera—the primary illness encountered by the pioneers on the Oregon Trail—was constricted from contaminated food or water. It filled the intestines with excess water, leading to diarrhea, dehydration and death.

Admittedly, the stomach flu is not cholera and the morbidity rates are much, much better nowadays. Still, it was a daunting consideration to leave Salt Lake for a nearly 900 mile drive back home. If we were to drive straight through, it would take 12 hours of driving.

The Oregon Trail stretched some nearly 2,000 miles from the "jumping off point" in Independence, Missouri to the Willamette Valley. Our trip from Salt Lake was about half that distance. In the days of the Oregon Trail, the trip would take between 4-1/2 to 5 months with an average daily distance of 15 miles.

Disease

In those days, pioneers encountered diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, dysentery, measles and typhoid fever. All of which were nasty and life threatening diseases for which there were few good treatments. Cholera was treated mostly with laudunum, now understood to be a pure form of opium—which must have had its own effects upon the body and mind.

Even today, cholera remains a pandemic in many parts of the world with recent outbreaks in Mexico, Haiti, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. The best treatment is a familiar regimen of fluids, electrolytes and antibiotics. (I can't tell you how much Gatorade and Powerade we consumed during our bout with the flu but it was a big part of our daily intake.)

Other than dysentery, these diseases have been nearly wiped out in the developed Western world. Dysentery remains a threat as there is no vaccine and recent strains are more resistant to antibiotics.

While we were fighting the flu, none of us were too concerned about the history or prevalence of the disease. I spent the day in bed only gathering up enough energy to take a warm bath (which would have been a luxury in pioneer days). My wife had to help me back to bed. She didn't have it any better when she got sick—passing out in the restroom.

The mortality rate on the Oregon Trail was high. Fortunately, we don't worry about that as much today. With the perspective of traveling that distance being sick a good portion of the way, gives me a lot of empathy and appreciation for the sacrifices of the early pioneers.

Equipment Failure

Wagons, horses, mules and oxen often presented problems on the trail. Wagons would break down. Animals would get sick, injured or too worn out to continue. Naturally, this made it difficult to continue. With belongings taking up the space in the wagons, most of the pioneers traveled the distance on foot. When things broke down, it became a daunting task to continue on the trail.

Even today, traveling through Eastern Oregon, particularly, there are long stretches of road between towns.

There would have been few places to restock on the trail then. It would come down to help from other members of the traveling party.

Having experienced mechanical difficulty on that long drive can be daunting. This time we were close to auto parts stores and gas stations when we had vehicle troubles. But, our nerves were a bit frayed when we realized that the wheel on our van was loose and we were missing a lug nut. We were in the middle of rural Idaho when this occurred. The nearest auto parts store was a good ten miles away. Normally, this wouldn't have been much of a concern, but given the state of the van, the late hour of the day, and trouble it would have caused if the van had completely broken down, we felt fortunate when we pulled into the store's parking lot.

Again in the pioneer days, it would not have been so easy. There are many stories of wagons breaking down. Broken or loose axles and wheels would at best slow the party down considerably.

It isn't much fun to deal with unreliable transportation.

Mountains Between

There is a lot of open road between Salt Lake City and Tacoma. This is especially noticeable in Eastern Oregon where there are long stretches of road with little to no sign of humanity. Recently, I have begun to appreciate this part of the country more than I had.

Stopping at a rest area shortly after passing into Oregon on I-84 there is an interpretative center that speaks of the surrounding Burnt River Valley. The name speaks of how when the pioneers were traveling through the Native Americans would set fire to the valley floor. By the time the pioneers had gotten to this point in their journey, they had already traversed some three quarters of the way to their destination. They must have been tired and worn out.

There were only a few hundred miles before they reached the terminus in Oregon City.

Yet, between them and their destination is a significant mountain range that rises up hundreds of feet to form steep canyon walls. At this point many intrepid pioneers were ready to give up. Getting their wagons over these mountains must have been a real challenge.

They pressed on, though. Ahead of them past these mountains was what some were calling the Garden of the World. They had left much of everything they had behind. They had traveled hundreds of miles, and they had probably seen a fair share of struggle and misfortune. They weren't about to stop before they reached their destination.

Weather

The weather forecast for our trip called for an inch of snow on the road. We traveled most of the way seeing only patches of snow on the ground on either side of the road but nothing on the road itself.

Shortly beyond the Burnt River Valley, though we began to have some snowfall. It wasn't significant but the clouds and mist hung low enough that visibility dropped to about 500 feet. For part of the drive at this point, I could see little more than the tail lights of the car ahead. Traffic slowed down considerably and we held our breath as we drove around precipitous mountain curves.

Eventually, the clouds lifted as we descended to the valley around Pendleton. At this point, the journey evens out and is down to about two hundred miles to Oregon City.

I'm sure many of the pioneers breathed a sigh of relief, as we did, when they were safely down on the valley floor. The final leg of the journey lay ahead. For us we were down to another four hours of driving.

But we knew that we would make it. Illness, problems with the van, and weather issues were largely behind us. All we had before us was to be safe while we battled tiredness. Within a few hours we were safely tucked in our own beds.

Our journey, even with the challenges we encountered, was nothing compared to the journey along the Oregon Trail that the early pioneers completed. However, we had a greater appreciation for the journey they had traveled because we had our own obstacles and challenges along the way.

A Long Road Home

For Thanksgiving this year, my family and I traveled to Salt Lake City to spend time with friends and family. With something like 48 nephews and nieces on my wife's side, we enjoy a large family gathering when we go there. Only part of the family was there, but it was big enough to have a good group of family.

Getting to Salt Lake for Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful. The only thing of note being that my wife and I had to trade driving back and forth for a couple hours as we headed for Pendleton, Oregon—a distance of about 300 miles. As we had left on a school day, we didn't get on the road until after 5 pm. The last half of the trip was pretty tiring, but we finally pulled into our hotel around midnight.

Thanksgiving was an enjoyable time. Everybody pulled together to provide the traditional feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (my favorite, really!), and a half dozen pies. It was nice spending a fairly relaxed afternoon and evening with family. Catching up and enjoying each other's company.

We were going to take it easy on Friday and Saturday. We spent Friday evening with other family members in Salt Lake and saw all the lights up around Temple Square.

Our intention was to leave Salt Lake Saturday and get to our hotel in Boise for the evening. Unfortunately, my two daughters (as well as my wife's brother whose house we were staying at) came down with the stomach flu in the middle of Friday night. They were sick enough that it made it pretty obvious we wouldn't be going anywhere on Saturday.

That allowed me time to get a headlight bulb replaced on the van. That evening my wife came back home to tell me that she had to put air into the driver's side front tire. I didn't think much of either of those things. The stomach flu was a greater concern.

It is an 862 mile drive from our home Martha's brother's house in the foothills of Salt Lake City to our home—a long drive    especially with a van full of family including a six-year-old. Being sick on the road is no fun.

Our plans had changed to where we would be leaving Sunday after church. The girls had gotten much better after a day of rest on Saturday.

When we got out of church on Sunday, we saw that the driver's side tire was low again. That meant that it was more of a problem than needing air. We headed back to the auto parts store where I had gotten the headlight bulb the day before. I removed the wheel while my wife went in to buy a tire patch kit. That was a fairly simple fix, so we were soon back on the road.

Nothing seemed like it would be in our way between Salt Lake and Boise.

Then when we neared Twin Falls, Idaho we began to notice a vibrating sound coming from under the van. We stopped on the side of the road and I did a quick walk around the van to see what the problem might be. There wasn't much light, so I couldn't see anything. All the tires were still full.

But the rattling sound was still there when we got back into the van. We pulled into a gas station and I discovered that we had lost a lug nut off the wheel. I was certain I had tightened all of them. We headed to yet another auto parts store where I soon discovered we had not only lost a lug nut but, the stud for that lug was snapped in two. That changed the problem into a more significant problem, so the rest of the family headed down the street for dinner while I set about replacing the stud and lug.

We were back on the road within about an hour. We pulled into our hotel in Boise around 9 pm. Not a bad time for us.

That night, though, one of my sons got sick. By early morning, I had gotten sick as well. I was sick enough that we knew we weren't going anywhere that day either.

We extended our hotel stay in Boise another day. And I rested in bed.

By the next morning, I was feeling better. Not perfect but good enough that we set out on our journey yet again.

When we got into Oregon, though, we stopped at another gas station, and my wife headed into the service station. After I filled up the van and had spent some time in the convenience store, I began to wonder what was happening with my wife. I sent my daughters into the bathroom to see what was happening. When my youngest came out she told me, "Mommy's okay but she's lying on the floor for some reason."

I went on to find out what was happening and discovered she had gotten sick and passed out. We were later told by a doctor in the family losing consciousness can happen from the dehydration that comes from the stomach flu.

We tucked my wife into her seat surrounded by pillows and with a sleeping bag pulled up to her chin. We were determined to get home, so we could all rest in our own beds that night.

It didn't escape our notice that much of what happened the last several days of our journey home from Salt Lake occurred on what was towards the end of the Oregon Trail.

Exploring the Wilderness

I took three of my kids to the Tacoma Art Museum last week, to see the newly finished wing with the Haub collection of Art of the American West. It was cool to see some paintings by the likes of Gilbert Stuart of George Washington.

The museum places narrative boards around the galleries to provide context for the art. One narrative told about how artists followed explorers and soldiers around the new land. Much of the artwork that was on display was painted during the expansion era of the country--during the 19th century. Much of the country was established during this time, so there was still lots of open land. There was a sense of newness and mystery.

The museum narrative spoke of the role of artists is to create identity for a place.

The thing that stands out for me about this is that in new territory we are still defining ourselves. Our identity is not yet established. Artwork and the things we surround ourselves with help establish a place in the world.

The artwork prevalent in the museum exhibit is reminiscent of one of my favorite schools of art--The Hudson River School.

In the Hudson River School, the art that was being created in the United States by artists such as Thomas Cole, Ashur Durand, Albert Bierstadt and others expressed the newness and often wildness of the environment.

According to Wikipedia, "Hudson River School paintings reflect three themes of America in the 19th century: discovery, exploration, and settlement. The paintings also depict the American landscape as a pastoral setting, where human beings and nature coexist peacefully."

The school celebrated the remaining wilderness in the Hudson River valley.

This wilderness can stand as a symbol of our own journey through life.

The wilderness of the Hudson River valley of the mid-19th century was quickly being replaced by a growing population. Streets, houses, farms and buildings were quickly replacing the ruggedness of the wilderness. But as we can see in the paintings of the Hudson River School wilderness was still accessible. There was still the opportunity to get out and explore. To get away from the conventional and tried.

For me, wilderness provides an opportunity to get away from the confines of the expected. There is some sense of danger. Yet, as the Hudson River School portrays there is place for man within this wilderness.

There is still room for exploration today. In fact, as I drive through Eastern Oregon, I am struck by how much open land still exists. Much of this may be owned and farmed, but in the distance are rugged mountains that speak of wilderness.

As I pursue creating my own unique path through life, the wilderness with its openness and opportunity for exploration and discovery stands as a prime metaphor for the exploration and discovery life provides. But we have to choose to leave our comfortable, known world in order to enter the wilderness.

Spinning Around the Universe

In 1543 Copernicus' work, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, was published shortly before his death. Copernicus' work brought about a relatively peaceable revolution in which there was a paradigm shift from believing the earth was the center of the universe to believing the sun was the actual center.

Prior to Copernicus the world had been under a Ptolemaic understanding of the universe—a geocentric concept that the earth was at the center of the universe and the sun, moon and other planets revolved around the earth. Copernicus, spurred on by astronomic criticisms raised by Averroes, developed a different concept of the universe. In his heliocentric model, the sun was at the center of the universe with the earth and other planets revolving around it.

This new concept, in hindsight, would be a dramatic shift of understanding of my place in the universe. Instead of the universe revolving around my home, the giant blue marble in the sky, the new reality is that my world revolves around a giant ball of gas that lies at the center of the universe.

In a way, this is like the universe of which I'm a part doing an abrupt about face. Instead of the earth being the point of reference for the earth, the new point of reference is the sun.

We all go through similar experiences of holding on tightly to our point of reference for the world in which we live. From the time we are babies when we rely so heavily on our mothers for nourishment. Not surprisingly, babies almost always have an incredible attachment to their mothers. As children begin going to school and gaining an identity in that frame of reference, school becomes increasingly important. You need look no further than the high school cross-town rivalries that can get so fierce. (Everything from defiled school flags, to stolen mascot costumes and even stolen street signs.)

This same sense of rivalry goes on up through college and extends into board rooms around the world. When that point of reference gets shaken—whether it be through the loss of a parent, a high-schooler's cross country move, failing to get into a coveted university, being handed the proverbial pink slip at work, or losing market share due to a competitor's new product—our world and self-identity gets shaken as well.

We often stumble at these junctures in our lives. Not only do we struggle to hold onto our own footings, but we also see opposition escalate. We see teenagers rebel against their parents news about the impending move. We see cross town rivalries extend beyond the ball field. And we see employees suffer severe depression and untimely deaths due to their world being shaken. We even see politician, such as Nixon, go to extremes in order to hold onto their political identity.

Perhaps, it was fortunate for Copernicus that his death so closely coincided with the publication of his theories. Less than a century later, in 1633, Galileo was convicted by the Inquisition of heresy and forced to publicly withdraw his support of Copernicus. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but because of his advanced age he was allowed to serve his term under house arrest at his villa in Arcetri outside of Florence.

It took contributions from a number of other prominent scientists before Copernicus' theories became widely accepted. Galileo used the newly invented telescope to add knowledge of Jupiter's moons, Venus' phases and the rotation of the sun about a fixed axis. Kepler introduced the idea that planets traveled in elliptical orbits. And Isaac Newton proposed the ideas of universal gravity to explain the elliptical orbits.

Anyone who has seen the ubiquitous styrofoam models constructed by grade school children, knows that the Copernicus model of heliocentrism is widely accepted. But it hasn't always been that way.

What outdated models are we using as reference for our lives? And what evidence do we need to accumulate before we accept a better model?

Guided by the Stars

Christopher Columbus was the first known sailor to keep detailed records of his voyage. His records indicate he navigated primarily by a system known as dead reckoning. This system relied on observation and timekeeping. A sailor would use they last known position to trace his course to the end of the day. That position would then be used as the next day's starting point.

In order for this to be even remotely accurate, the sailor would need to determine how far they had traveled during the day. This would be based on speed and time. (Distance = Speed x Time, e.g. 55 mph x 2 hrs = 110 miles.) The problem with this system is there wasn't an accurate way of keeping track of either time or speed.

In the middle of the ocean, there aren't a lot of land masses by which to navigate. They would have to have relied on the position of the stars, moon and sun. But in these days, celestial navigation was in its early infancy.

Further, there was little to depend upon for keeping track of time. Accurate clocks had not yet been developed, so the sailors were left to depend on hourglasses. The hourglass was to be turned each half hour by the ship's boy. Since the glass was always running either a little slow or a little fast, the glass would be trued up by the rising or setting sun or midnight.

Midnight was determined by using a nocturnal, a tool which told the time of night by the rotation of stars around the Celestial Pole.

Accurate distance tracking was also impeded by both storms and calms at sea.

In our day of satellites and global positioning systems, it is difficult to appreciate how challenging navigation must have been for Columbus and his crew. In fact, in our day it is really hard to appreciate how it could have been possible for the majority of people in the known world to have no idea that there was a whole other continent out there. After all, the Americas make up not quite a third of the world's land mass. That's a big lump of dirt that couldn't be seen.

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path. ~ Joseph Campbell

Our individual navigation through life is much like Columbus' journey to the New World. Each of us has an individual path that only we can determine and travel. Many of us, myself included at times, travel over the seas of life being driven blindly by the winds. We are so busy keeping the ship aright on the sea that we sometimes forget that we need to navigate as well.

As Socrates famously stated, "the unexamined life is not worth living."

In order to navigate life, we need to have an idea of where we are, where we have been and where we are headed. I'm not just talking logistics here, either. It doesn't take much nowadays to know our position on the earth with incredible accuracy. However, we ourselves can be the only accurate judge of where we are on our life's journey.

The Widow's Mite

A painting hangs in the office buildings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. The painting is that of a young widow surrounded by children. The woman is casting in two mites. The Savior is in the background with a handful of his disciples. He tells them that of her want the widow has cast in all she has. 

There have been others with greater wealth who have cast in aplenty. But she has given all she has.

There are times when I have plenty, and I am able to give more. I have more energy, so I am able to provide greater service. I have more optimism, so I can give more encouragement. 


There are other times, though, when I don't have as much. I am in my down cycle of dealing with depression. I don't have the energy that I do at other times, so it is much more difficult to serve. I am filled with more pessimism than optimism. I struggle to give myself encouragement let alone anyone else. 

Deep within, I still have the same desire to serve. I simply don't have the same resources. My reservoir has been depleted to some degree. Sometimes more significantly than others. 

Yet, I am the same person in both circumstances. It is almost like I have two sides of me that are distant relatives. They know each other and may even recognize each other in passing, but they aren't close. 

When I am in my depressive state, I doubt that I will ever get better. On the other hand, when I am in my more stable state (maybe even a little better than stable), I thrill a little at the idea that I have gotten past the depression. I think that I am done with it and won't be heading back to see that sad little cousin. 

Both cousins have the same internal motivation to serve and to celebrate the differences in people and in life. 

Yet, they don't have the same resources. 

Carrie Fisher, in her book Wishful Drinking, refers to her two cousins as Pam and Roy. Roy is full of energy and enjoys life to excess. Pam, on the other hand, struggles to plod ahead. 

I don't know the names of my two distant cousins, yet. I do recognize that they are related and do have a similar motivation to serve and give of themselves. They just don't have the same capacity to do so.

Both have insights and service to give. I am beginning to appreciate that fact. 

Another thought on the matter is that the dichotomy that exists within me also exists in the people I find around me in daily living. I aspire to what Carol Dweck refers to as a growth mindset. At times when I am more of my "normal" self, I am much more in the growth mindset. 

In those periods, I am amazed that not everybody is in that same mindset. Don't they see life as an opportunity to learn and grow. To become better than they have been. To experience life as a living, breathing creature full of possibility. 

I am seeing, though, as I look at myself. That we don't all have the same capacity all the time. Some of us are struggling to survive. Life isn't a magical creature we are trying to tame. It can be either a threatening beast we cower before, or it is an old horse neglected in the stable.

I am learning compassion for those striving to hold on. I do aspire to live with a growth mindset. But sometimes it does't work out that way.

Pebbles and Breadcrumbs

In the classic fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel are led deep into the forest by their father, a woodcutter. Their selfish stepmother wanting to rid the home of children, so she and their father would have enough food in a time of personal famine.

Initially, the two overhear their stepmother and father making plans to take them into the forest and leave them. Hansel goes out at night and gathers white pebbles to mark the path back home. When they are left deep in the forest, Hansel and Gretel follow the pebbles back home. Their father delighted to see them make it home. The stepmother, on the other hand, is furious.

She prevails upon her husband to take them back into the forest and leave them. This time, she locks the children's bedroom door, so they are unable to gather pebbles during the night.

Instead, when Hansel and Gretel are led into the forest, Hansel leaves breadcrumbs from a slice of bread he had taken. Unknown to him, though, birds eat the crumbs as they head deeper and deeper into the forest. When their father leaves them in the woods, they are lost.

They discover a house made of gingerbread and candy. They are invited inside by a very old woman only to discover, belatedly, that she is a witch. By the time they discover that, it is too late for them. They are held captive until Gretel out tricks her and they escape.

Normally, this is considered a type of coming-of-age tale. A children's or young adult tale. But what if it has application for adults as well.

We are led into the wilderness of adulthood to fend for ourselves only to discover we have been left alone. The wilderness is a maze of figuring out how to survive. Sometimes that wilderness is more easily navigated. Other times we find ourselves feeling captured and working for the proverbial witch. Yet, other times we find ourselves stuck in the forest subsisting in less than ideal conditions.

Just as Hansel and Gretel being aided by the swan across the lake, we may at some point find ourselves being aided by supernatural beings. It certainly may seem that way when we are led out of what feels like captivity to work that is fulfilling and satisfying.

I have felt like Hansel and Gretel throughout different points of my career, feeling lost in the wilderness not knowing which path to take, being in a career that satisfied my needs like the candy in the gingerbread house, and feeling like I'm imprisoned in the witches cage. And, yet, I've somehow come to the point where I feel like my journey is being aided by supernatural beings.

Along the way, I've traveled down many paths that haven't led home. Paths that included time as a office supplies salesperson, a database administrator, a senior accountant, and as a financial analyst. None of them led me to the witch's cauldron but I often felt as if I were in a foreign land and all I wanted was to head home.

Even since being more intentionally on the path to figuring out my individual purpose I've tried various paths as a paper mache artist, a photographer, and a graphic designer. It is only recently since I have found my way to helping businesses navigate their own path in the world that I have begun to feel like I am headed into home territory.

I may not be completely home yet, but at least the territory looks familiar and comfortable. It has been a long journey with many twists and turns, and in no way is it time for me to rest. Actually, now that I am in home territory, I need to settle in and get to work clearing off land that has become overgrown or left fallow. It will take some work to see the fruits of my labors, but I look forward to a rich bounty.

Seeking the Meaning of Life

After I first encountered the threshold that would take me into the next adventure of my life, I had just come back from being out on extended sick leave due to whooping cough. That, to say the least, was a nasty fight!

The good thing is that being out sick like I was I had time to do a lot of thinking. One of the things I had been thinking about for a long time was what was I to do with my life. I honestly felt like my life was being directed at this point. For some reason, I needed to get a disease that would frequently have me choking for breath and coughing so hard that I would lose consciousness.

My future was something I thought about while I was out on sick leave. I felt a strong sense that change was imminent. I just didn't know what change looked like.
Dealing with a serious illness has a tendency to make one think about life and what it all means. In my religion, it is generally accepted that the purpose of life is to be proven worthy of returning to live with God. I'm good with that in the macro sense. What I really wanted to know is at the micro level. What is my life purpose?

I guess one of the things I was looking for was meaning in the experiences I had had in life. I have always felt that there is something more than surface level of survival and existence. More than providing for my family and watching them grow. More than developing skills and abilities. More than filling out a resume of accomplishments.

Stephen R. Covey wrote of leaving a legacy. What was my legacy to be?

That question has often been on my mind—almost to the point of obsession. I believe that one of the reasons I struggled so much at the work I was doing was that I felt so out of tune with whatever that purpose was. I wasn't fulfilling my unknown purpose, so I didn't feel fulfilled. I didn't feel satisfied with the life I was living. In fact, I felt quite the opposite.

I felt an overwhelming feeling of incongruency—like I was on one path but was meant to be on another. It's like being lost in the airport. I found I was in the wrong terminal and my plane was leaving soon. I knew I needed to get to the right gate to get on that airplane, but I didn't even know where that gate was.

My time at the job where I had been when I got whooping cough lasted a few more months before layoffs began to happen in the company, and I was laid off.

Since then, I have been on a mission to figure out my purpose in life. And, not in some general purpose of the word but what was my individual purpose? What would it take for me to feel like my life to have purpose?

I became unwilling to put that on hold while I got back to the life I had established. What had been comfortable became anything but.

My family and my faith have remained constants in my life. But I knew that if I were to find satisfaction, I knew I needed to do more than put food on the table and a roof over our heads.

I knew there would be no easy answers. Plumbing the depths of one's soul is an awful lot of work! And can be incredibly confronting!

But I began to get signs that I was on the right path. A kind of breadcrumbs of the soul.

Life Lessons Learned

My father passed away nearly a year and a half ago. Hardly a day passes that I don't think of him and the legacy he left. Although he left little in the way of worldly goods, he did leave behind a legacy of family, beauty and God.

In some ways my life has mirrored Dad's. He put a lot of time, energy and money into education, which is really kind of amazing considering the start he got in life.

You see Dad's life began with the Great Depression. Like many parents they struggled to provide for the family. My dad's parents divorced shortly after Dad was born. His mother remarried when Dad was six.

Due to the struggles of the Depression, Dad's family moved  from state to state around the country. As a result, he was never in one place long enough to get a strong education. When he graduated from high school, he told us he was barely able to read.

After high school, he joined the Navy during the Korean War. Reading was a primary activity  for him during long periods aboard ship as it traveled the world. Naturally, his reading ability improved dramatically.

Upon returning from the war, Dad headed to college on a GI Bill where he studied history and subsequently earned his teacher's certificate. He taught grade school for a number of years in a small town on the coast of Oregon. After a while, though, he came to the conclusion that teaching in the school system was not a good fit for him. So we moved inland to Springfield, where Dad studied accounting during much of my teenage years.

He finished his studies at the same time I finished high school. He moved with my mom and sister to Seattle where he had taken an accounting job. My younger brother and I stayed behind in Oregon. My younger brother finished his senior year of high school, and I started at the community college in the area.

The main point to all this is that Dad pursued education through all the time I knew him. Even after he moved to Seattle, after about five years he was back in school taking art classes whenever he could. Often taking classes at the University of Washington.

It was when Dad started taking art classes and starting to reignite his passion for capturing the beauty in the world that he seemed to come to life. Throughout my childhood, Dad was often busy studying or working. We didn't spend much time together, and, unfortunately, we didn't have much of a relationship at that time.

After he started pursuing art as a passion, his life began to spring up within him. He began to open up to us kids and we started to see light in his eyes and excitement and passion in the work he was doing. I am grateful for the change of life that art brought to my dad and the relationship it opened up for us.

I remember frequently going out with Dad. One simple incident in particular stands out in my mind. We had stopped our walk along the boardwalk bordering the Puget Sound near his home. He began to describe the light and the shadows he found in the evening sky. With his developing artistic eye, he was able to see things that I wasn't. He saw depth and color that I had taken for granted.

My own artistic vision didn't change at that time, but my appreciation for Dad did. I began to see my Dad as an artist. He was able to see the world around us through the eyes of an artist. I had studied, among other things, art history in college, so I knew many of the great painters and sculptors since the Renaissance. I recognized art that stirred my soul, but I didn't see the world through the eyes of an artist.

Somehow that experience has stuck with me.

As I went through my career, I kept looking for a similar role that would help me see the world anew. Something that I felt was mine. Until recently, I struggled like Dad did before he found his passion for art. I have always made more money than Dad did but it wasn't fulfilling. I was good at what I did, but I never felt alive doing it. It was a means to an end.

I am grateful for the legacy my father left me of his love of art. Art is not only rewarding on its own, but I believe Dad's passion for art opened something in me that made me long for finding my own way in life.

More on that later.

Call to Adventure

Joseph Campbell in his epic The Hero with a Thousand Faces lays out what he called the monomyth. Almost all fiction follows a similar story arc--from the story of Jesus' ministry in the New Testament to the journey of Luke Skywalker through the Star Wars saga.

There are basically four stages of the arc. We start out with the hero in his known world with life as status quo. Jesus grows up in Nazareth the son of a carpenter. Luke grows up on Tatooine with his uncle and aunt.

Then comes the call to adventure. In the case of Jesus, he is baptized by John, the heavens open and a voice declares,  "This is my beloved son. in whom I am well pleased." (KJV Matthew 3:16) A new reality begins for Jesus. No longer is he simply a carpenter from Nazareth.

Luke's uncle and aunt are killed, and he is left alone in the wilderness. Obi-wan Kenobi enters his life and he is called upon a quest to overcome the Empire.

In both cases, the two could conceivably abandon the call and stay in familiar territory. Of course, neither do and the adventure begins. On their new adventure, they encounter all kinds of challenges, tasks and opportunities. 

They are assisted by others along the way: Jesus with his twelve disciples; Luke with the help of Han Solo, Princess Leia, Obi-wan and the rest of the resistance.

Ultimately, Jesus goes on to become the Savior of the world. Luke goes on to defeat the empire.

In the end, they cross over into a new world.

Joseph Campbell calls this story structure the monomyth because the basic arc is found in most stories throughout time. From adventure tales to romance. And from short stories to epic series.

Each of us, in turn,  is called upon to embark upon our own adventure. We have the choice to make of staying in our familiar territory or entering an unknown world with unknown challenges where, ultimately, we may lose the life we once knew. 

In a way, our adventure can be seen as an internal struggle. At least, the battle that decides if we stay or if we go on the adventure happens within the mind of the character--or within us. In most fictional stories, the choice seems almost inevitable. 

The Clash's song Should I Stay or Should I Go puts it well:  "If I go there will be trouble. And if I stay there will be double."

In our own lives, though, the choice isn't so clear. To embark upon our own adventure, we need to leave our comfortable existence behind. Frequently, this means calling into question the world we have accepted as being the real world. The way things should be. The call to adventure--on the other hand--may only be a weak glimpse into the way things could be. In life, there are no guarantees. If we stay, we believe we are more likely to enjoy what we have become accustomed to. The familiar routines. The accepted business practices. The established reputation.

After all, it is the known world. The world we have come to accept as our own.

But as in the Clash song, there will be trouble if we stay.

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’ - John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Miller

Those missed opportunities may simply be things we wish we could have done--a regret. But they could also be a better business, more satisfaction and fulfillment, more adventure. Or the adventure may be making the necessary changes that will save an audience, a neighborhood, a community, or the world. 

Ultimately, the choice to embark upon our own adventure is up to us.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Not Me or Living Life as a Counterfeit

I came across a passage this morning in Seth Godin’s The Icarus Deception about three ways artists engage with their audience. The first way, is that they really don’t. They make their art and aren’t concerned about a connection. The second way is for the artist to consider her work incomplete unless he makes a genuine connection with the work she produces and the audience that gets it.

The third, and perhaps most tragic way, is for the artist to be more concerned about meeting the cries of the market instead of creating art. "Some [artists] will eagerly listen to every criticism and work to water down the art to pander to the largest possible audience. For this person, market share means more than art does. And so we see old Elvis become a Las Vegas parody and old Judy Garland hit bottom onstage." (Godin, 202)

In my previous post I wrote about how my work experience ended with an emotional crisis. It has been difficult to put into words or find a story that mirrors how I was feeling. After all, I did have a job that paid me well with really good benefits. I was doing work that I was good at and was heralded as being Mr. Excel and the IT guy within the department. I could meet almost any technical challenge that was sent my way. Yet, I was bored out of my mind and becoming increasingly disillusioned.

I should have been happy. But I wasn’t.

As I’ve worked through the emotional crisis that nearly took my life, I have come to strongly believe that the source of my problem was that I was living in disharmony with my inner self. For many people, that is not a big deal. I have had a number of trusted associates confide in me that they were seldom satisfied or fulfilled in their jobs. They were good at what they did but they, too, were disillusioned by the way in which they had to do it. But, they persevered in order to provide for their families. 

As the days, months and years slipped by in the work I was doing I kept telling myself that I needed to set aside the angst I was feeling with regards to my work. After all, I had a family to provide for and a mortgage to pay. (Is it any coincidence that mortgage is Latin for death (mort) pledge (gage) ;-) ? )

So I kept my head down and plugged on, and like many of my coworkers, worked for the weekend and an early retirement twenty+ years away.

In an age when positive thinking is heralded as the cure for everything from depression to cancer, I tried swallowing the proverbial happy pill and kept on a perpetual happy face. Until I couldn’t muster the strength to do that any longer.

(In an ironic twist of fate,  when I returned from my leave for whooping cough I was written up, in part, for not smiling enough. Part of the ensuing employment probation was that I would maintain a cheerful demeanor. In the accounting department…. Really?)

I had worked my life for a paycheck regularly advancing up the corporate ladder in order to get a bigger and bigger paycheck.

The irony being that I have since discovered that money isn’t very important to me. Yet in an arena in which salary is valued more highly than job satisfaction and self fulfillment, it was the measuring stick by which I evaluated whether or not I was being successful. As there are always others making more money, I didn’t feel I was being hugely successful on that front either. 

Yet, if everybody else seems to be able to navigate life working a job that didn’t provide a lot of fulfillment, why is that I had such a crisis? I should have been able to brush it off and move on. Right?

I couldn’t, though. Even the thought of going back to that type of life, even with all its security, ties my stomach in knots. 

How do I reconcile my experience with everybody around me who continue to plod along? 

A light went on when I came across the short passage in Godin’s book. Did I encounter the same dilemma that Elvis encountered along his trajectory from the hills of Tennessee to the stages of Las Vegas?

In Las Vegas, Elvis was at what would have seemed to the casual bystander the height of his career. He was making $100,000 a week, and given a $6,000 daily credit in the casino—but he didn’t play nodding to his Southern Baptist upbringing.

He was bringing in enough money to buy Rolexes, Cadillacs and houses for numerous friends. His shows changed the city from a mafia-controlled environment to that of big business.

Yet, he was miserable. 

Elvis had just ended a ten-year engagement with Hollywood where he was making up to three movies a year. But he felt no sense of artistry. The King of Rock and Roll had been brought to feel like a singing monkey on display to perform but not free to be himself. 

He said of Hollywood, “I was bored with movies, bored with the people, and bored with my life. I felt I’d sold my soul to the Devil.”

Heading to Las Vegas, he thought he had found a new lease on life. “I look on today as the day I get back to doing the work that God put me on Earth to do.”

But then like a sow returning to the mire, Elvis signed a seven-year contract where he would be doing two shows a night, for four weeks, twice a year.

The money was good. The fame was good. And he was a popular man among the ladies. But, he was miserable. 

Trying to find solace in that which doesn’t satisfy, he filled himself with food (needing to get a new rhinestone suit each time he performed), drugs, and lavishing generous gifts on family and friends. 

The popular singer Tom Jones recalled, “He loved being Elvis Presley, There was no doubt about that. He loved it when he was great and who could blame him? But then I think he started to dislike himself. He lost his desire to be Elvis Presley.”

Lost his desire to be Elvis Presley. Or more accurately, lost his desire to be the counterfeit Elvis that Hollywood and Las Vegas propped up.

Although, Elvis’ story is much more sensational than mine. I can relate to living a counterfeit life. Prior to my emotional crisis, I had been living the life I was “supposed” to live. Go to college, graduate school, get a good job, make good money, pay the mortgage, provide for the family and churn out work. Day after day after day.

Elvis lost the will to continue on because he had given up his mastery. He had lost the dream and the artistry of creating something new and vital. He stopped being who he was and accepted his role as a forfeit. 

And, ultimately, he paid the price.

While Elvis did exhibit artistry and mastery early in his career, I had never felt that I had found my own voice. Instead I had pursued the life that was held up as the ideal. And I, too, pursued and tried to stay true to that illusion. Until I couldn’t any longer.

Since that day of crisis, I have been on a crusade, a pilgrimage to find my own artistry and mastery. I am still very much on the path, but I feel as if I am entering a native land that I left long ago.

How It Began

The idea for Center Based Marketing has come over a lifetime of attempting to find work that resonates with my ideals. My personality is such that I am uncomfortable doing something without feeling a connection to what I am doing.

I don’t have any statistics to indicate if this is common or uncommon. I do know that the places where I’ve worked most people tended to be content with doing their job and getting a paycheck. For me, there has always been some discontent… a nagging feeling that something was amiss. 

I didn’t really become aware of how much discomfort there was in fighting against that nagging feeling until it came to a head and I slipped into a terrible fight with major depression. 

Even after I took a couple months off in order to get through the depression, I didn’t feel like I had any answers as to how to proceed. In essence, it felt like I was putting a band-aid on it and going back to work. The same work, at the same place, with the same people. The only difference was I was now taking medication and seeing a psychiatrist regularly. Nothing underlying really changed.

After all, that is the way it is. Right? Put on your name tag, paste on a smile and head back to work. 

The only problem is that didn’t take care of the underlying problem.

After I went back to work, I did have a shift in my job responsibilities to the point that I was doing more programming and development tasks rather than simply focusing on accounting and analysis. My role was that of a financial analyst. With the new changes, I shifted more into a business analyst position. 

I enjoyed the work more, but I still didn’t feel fulfilled….not a part of the benefit package. ;-) The job had all the typical benefits that come with a good job—nearly 4 weeks of vacation plus another 10 days of holidays, 401K matching, health insurance, eye insurance, etc. etc.

Looking at the number of people who are dissatisfied with their job, it seems most jobs don’t come with job satisfaction included in the benefit package. I’m being facetious here but when we look at a job we tend to only look at the numbers related to it (salary, weeks vacation, 401K matching, etc). 

Through the course of my career, I have taken quite a number of personality profiles in order to understand myself better. They would all hint at something. [Need more here]. I thought I was doing something that I cared about it. I know I was doing something I was good at and was being adequately compensated for. But there was something missing. 

One of the things that attracted me to the job I took was that the company’s mission was to “enable it’s customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer.” That sounded like a good cause and one that I could get behind. 

I’ve always been an environmentalist and an idealist. Making the world healthier, cleaner and safer sounded like something good to get behind. And I can’t really deny that the company’s efforts did lead to the world becoming better. 

For whatever reason, it did not fulfill me, though. 

After a couple more years of work with the new responsibilities and an increasing sense that something was wrong, I ended up constricting whooping cough. I was miserably sick. Passing out on the floor from coughing so hard. Naturally, I couldn’t work in that state of health, so I left again for a few weeks on short-term disability in order to recover. Doctors orders and all.

When I went back to work, it was evident from the moment I stepped into the department that I wasn’t welcome there. I had crossed whatever threshold and there was no opportunity to turn back. HR was called in and I had a slew of charges filed against me. Some of them were legitimate. Others, well…

I immediately fell into the worst depression I had ever been in. I had just fought for my life with whooping cough, taking significant amounts of hydrocodone, and fighting frequently for what seemed like my last breath. At times, it seemed like my life was passing before my eyes. 

And here I was, back at work, and I was being handed my life in a basket. It was more than I could take, and I snapped. But I did it on personal time, so I was back at work the next day as if nothing had happened. Only a couple people know how close it really came.

Internally, though, something had snapped and I had crossed my own threshold of no return. I didn’t know where my life was headed but I knew something was about to change.

And this time, instead of looking outside for job (and life) satisfaction, I began to look within. I didn’t really know what that meant. To be honest, I probably didn’t even know I was doing it.