Sitting down to write this column, I was thinking about opportunities the New Year might bring, and wondering how receptive we would be to any possibilities we might encounter. Booting up and glancing at my folder for these drafts, however, I saw an old column with “Did_Not_Use” in the file name. Not remembering it, my curiosity said to open it first. Written in September 2019, the following seems even more appropriate today.
How Many Steps?
We all know that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, but how many steps do we feel that we’ve taken so far? Shortly before writing this column, I read Joe Kannapell’s The Last Word [for our October 2019 issue], The Right Job, and his conclusion resonated with me:
“If you, like me, have toured the country looking for the right job, recall the words of St. Augustine: ‘Life is like a book, if you don’t travel, you’ve seen only one page.’ And from each of your experiences, even the toughest, you’ve gained a world of marketable knowledge.”
Throughout my life, I’ve known many people who have lived their entire lives within a limited radius of where they grew up. Sometimes it’s the same town, occasionally it’s a short distance from their childhood home. And now, as I’m getting older, I wonder how different life would be without opportunities to gain a new perspective. Change is tough, journeys are difficult, joy is fleeting—but who we are will always be a composite of both the good and the bad of what we have experienced.
Having a Different Perspective
Having lived in four states and one foreign country, I often make comparisons about how things are “here” versus “there,” general attitudes of people in this place versus that, and many of the little reflex actions and phrases that are normal in one place versus odd in another. Whether or not someone has had the privilege to live in multiple places though, I’d like to believe that we can all (learn to) look past ourselves and remember to view situations from more than one perspective.
A New Year marks another opportunity to assess where we are in our journeys, what we have learned so far, and where we would like to head next.
Here’s to a New Year where we can welcome the changes, seize the opportunities, and not let the road blocks and potholes distract us from the possibilities on the journey ahead.