2018

In the lovely mellow space which is the week between Christmas and New Year's - those by-design moments not occupied by the usual noise and activity of a vibrant family - it's not difficult to pull inward and consider the upcoming trip around the sun.

It has been my reality that, for most of my life, these earnest, tender-hearted resolutions found their speedy demise shortly after the midnight bells on New Year's Eve. In a stereotypical description, I may have had the want, but not made a decision. Such bland, overused word, and yet the implication is severe. A decision, as I continue to consider things, is a phenomenon of will, rather than emotion. With that in view, perhaps the best decisions are the ones made with explicit understanding that emotions will soon work *against* - rather than for - it. Because most of the change we seek are the things which have been difficult to obtain; accomplish; change; or face.

The right decisions are also intensely personal and highly tailored; and therefore requiring no justification to anyone else about why those, in particular, are what should drive me forward, and not something else. Vague semi-societal aspirations of 'better shape', 'better time management', better what-the-fuck-ever are perhaps the primary reason we jump the bandwagon as heartily as we do. Over the last few months, the sequence of primary life drivers have begun to reverse, for me.

It has not been a wasted consideration to attempt to design what my overall life vision is; and as that ultra-deep conversation with self floats more and more into view, the decisions I commit to are no longer in and of themselves, following random, albeit predictable, blueprint of 'bettering' everything; rather, they become specific, preordered support beams for the over-arching, ultimate life structure that I mean to be now intentional, designed, sought-after.

Armed with a more strategic view of life, it is also easier to prioritize the near-term focus. For me a somewhat-midlife transformation began with my physical self, and that change, once successfully permanent, has begun to bleed predictably into next life sequences (like career).

I realized while reading this morning that the things I find holding me back from venturing broader out into the world of those less advantaged - sick, homeless, hungry, lonely - are mostly two-fold. One is emotional readiness to step into pain - to truly fall into limitless compassion & kinship which, I still fear, will likely rip my heart open on first contact. My leading tendency remains to soak in the others' pain, and paradoxically, I expect my natural talents to be dulled and rendered almost useless by being instantly overwhelmed - overrun - by injustice and suffering. So preparation to live immersed in another's struggle is important (although I have to be mindful that I spend so much time in mental prep that I bypass the opportunity real life offers every day that passes). The other obstacle I face mentally is instability that remains in my own life, resolution for which does not set me free to fully engage into situations and solutions of others. Here, primarily, the 'undone' pieces center around my legal status (severe procrastination to obtain citizenship); and our financials - specifically settling debt and providing a savings baseline to stabilize provision for the needs of our family before I feel secure enough to provide for others (both financially, and through potential future career choices, etc.). It is not necessarily that I feel that lack of right paperwork or fat savings account makes me ineffective; it is that by failing to resolve this bit of life for us, I don't feel confident that I have the multi-faceted solutions - or frankly the clear unburdened focus - for others. It is a clean-up area of our life that I would like to address and put to rest, to complete the mental build-out of *me* that is more shored up to start traveling upstream into places where hurt lives, and stay there wholeheartedly.

I'm careful, in considering this, not to assume that God's work has to be premediated. But I do feel that stepping out too far before I'm ready - whatever that means, but I can usually tell very well when 'ready' comes, and God has proven immaculate in his timing of every stretch of the soul he's required of me - 'forces' rather than 'flows', and I'm aiming for flow.

In his perfect sequence, and through significant difficulties, I've already absorbed a high number of building blocks to the larger looming outline of the life I am aiming to live. I've learned to set boundaries. I've learned to truly accept myself. I've learned to take care of myself as a non-negotiable priority. I've learned to dislike digitized human connections, and reject the impersonal nature of most of the human contact now available to use. I've learned to fully own, and therefore freely design and implement, my professional decisions. I've learned that coaching and mentoring are foundationally important to me, to feed both my growth and my humility (which expands at the same speed as does my sphere of influence). I've learned to absolve myself of the weight of others' opinions, while neither neglecting nor being fed by those.