Discovering your perfect career

That's my reading for tonight. The Complete Idiot's Guide to no less.

Hi, My Name is Lisa. I am 40 years old. I don't know what I want to do with my life.

*sigh*

What does Christmas mean for you?

Gina asked me what Christmas meant to me. After a short consideration, I realized that it means the best (and sometimes only) time that people express love.

It's a space that we have carved out-that we have given ourselves permission to have-which allows us to remember that we are a community. A family. That I love you as much as I would love my blood. That the world we live in is actually small. That the person whom you think lives across the world and whom you feel you despise could actually be your brother, mother, sister, lover, friend.

For that one day, many of us come together. We are generous and free spirited. We kiss with abandon. We hold each other close. We revel in laughter. We make an effort to be social. To break bread with each other. We acknowledge our humanity, our connection and the beauty we know is around us, inside us and available to us.

Just imagine what that could mean for the rest of those 364 days of the year. What could we build? What mountains could we move? What amazing things could we do with that amount of love and compassion?

It frightens us, I think. That power, that intensity, that sheer possibility.

So we tuck it away. For months. We forget about it. We go about the work and play and life that we lead.

Until we hear the seasonal songs and feel the crisp cool air bite our noses and our cheeks.
And our hearts begin to thaw and we feel that familiar tug...

what do you dream of?

I am reminded frequently - by the conflict in the world, the Buddhist difficult-ness of life, the pain that is present in so many people's hearts and souls, the fear that propels each of us to react, retreat, retaliate- of how short our time is on this earth and how, even more critical it is to make sure it’s the life that YOU want for yourself. I have no visual picture of what that life is, right now. I don’t dream about a future on my own or in a certain place or even knowing what I want to do with my life. Surely, at 40, I should have some glimpses? Some ideas? Some aspirations? Or maybe I have too many and they render me paralyzed.

Perhaps by starting small – learning Spanish, taking a short trip to somewhere new, let go of some of my newly acquired baggage of the last few years (partying, being wild, being sexy…) – that these realizations will surface? More vividly? Or maybe it’s in the act of doing that the desire manifests?! I will watch this and see what I learn.

I am watching my fingers type in my laptop screen as I enter these words. I see these strong, square fingers, so much like Julie’s and my Dad’s. I see a long-haired, wrinkled but smiling face silhouetted in the background. What would she tell my younger self? What wisdom, capacity and opportunity is before me. I am feeling more and more compelled to find out what that is. 

- lml, November 25, 2012