JUST SHOW UP
. . . great job, excellent benefits
Thursday Jan. 16, 2014
Failures of any kind are recoverable. Right?
Mistakes of any kind can be corrected. Right?
Missed opportunities of any kind can be grabbed up, or simply replaced by new opportunities just waiting for us to take our shot. Right?
At twenty, those ideas were true. At thirty, of course they were still valid. At forty, even more than before. At fifty, awesome instruction for life.
At sixty, I was starting to really catch on.
At sixty-two, I believe I get it.
When we were all so very young . . .
I saw life, opportunity and possibilities as limitless. Didn’t have many clues about life, I was full of myself and hard working, energetic and brimming, I had enthusiasm and confidence but I didn’t really know very much.
I know a little bit more now.
I see pain and understand grief. I know failure because I’ve crawled valley floors and kitchen floors. I know heights because I’ve stood on a mountain top (a real one) and climbed others (the emotional ones). In real life, just like those mountains, coming down is just as risky, just as dangerous as climbing up. I’ve known joys like all the other boys, I’ve known sleepless nights, an empty shell. I’ve come to realize I’ve never been alone, never been the only one feels these things. Everyone does. Not every day, but absolutely everyone.
There is nothing I can’t do, pursue, learn, teach or preach. There is nothing I can’t imagine, nothing I can’t dream or scheme, nothing I can’t accomplish if I want to.
Sage thoughts – because sage is just age with an S in front of it.
To many of us, me included, seek learning and wisdom, crave enlightenment and ache to feel fulfilled. When headlines, deadlines, best-before dates and obituaries encroach on our thinking we must remember that enlightenment and fulfillment don’t come from dreaming or moments of clairvoyance. They come from doing. The erupt in the middle of doing things. Feelings come out of things that happened. Insights – and all other forms of learning come from the doing, working, showing up and putting sweat on our brow and rows in our soil.
Life is, for all of us, just beginning. Right?
Duration, as I’ve learned, is not a solution in itself. Right?
I don’t say that because I expect to live long and a friend is dying short-changed – but because every life at every stage is a life fully lived. Right?
We are all vessels of knowing and creativity – we don’t find that by sitting in wait for some brain-bomb to strike us like lightening.
The seven-year old teaching a game to a six year old.
A floor sweeper teaching the new guy how to be thorough.
A farmer with a grandchild on his knee drives the tractor and teaches the importance of planting seeds in rows and keeping a hand on the wheel. A sailor takes his brother’s boat for a ride around the island, but he has a plan.
If you don’ have time to learn something today, take time to teach something.
It’s easy.
Just do what you do.
Let someone watch you do it.
If nobody is watching, write about and then send it to someone.
Every day we arrive at our jobs – every day we arrive at our tasks. Workman at his bench, executive in her boardroom, pilots, captains, working, playing, living or dying – we are all showing somebody the way, every day.
It’s simple – and you’ll never be out of work – just show up.
Just start.
Mark Kolke
199,768
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -3C / 27F, light overcast, cool breeze, everything that melted yesterday (it was like a glorious spring day that made me feel we’ve broken winter’s back) froze overnight so walking was a hazardous moonscape of ice-junk, Gusta was frustrated because everything that smelled interesting is now frozen like concrete – but hopefully later today our walk route will be passable …
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
Is that natural or synthetic happiness? I watched the video and from TED's perspective could not ascertain which happiness would refer to the certain set of circumstances applied to your friend, GW, Brady, Tx
