Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
The line from the poem The Summer Day by Mary Oliver is present with me this evening. I’ve quoted the entire poem in this blog before and am thinking about this question as it pertains to my life. This afternoon I was on a conference call with 11 members of a leadership group I participated with five years ago. Periodically we get together on a call to talk about what we’re up to in our leadership journeys and our work in the world. The person who had initiated the call asked each of us to ponder three questions ahead of time and then share our thoughts during our time on the phone today. The questions were simple yet thought provoking: (1) What is an accomplishment that you’d like to share with the group? (2) What has been your greatest disappointment since completing the leadership program? and (3) How do you imagine your Leadership experience will impact you 5 years from now?
I listened to my colleagues as they shared their accomplishments and disappointments. Much of what was said I resonated with, but I found myself thinking about how at various points over the past year and a half I felt like I wasn’t accomplishing anything and that disappointment in myself and where I was in my life was running at an all-time high. Today as I considered the questions for myself I wasn’t in a negative, woe-is-me I haven’t accomplished anything space, I simply listened to my fellow leaders as they shared their various perspectives. When I finally spoke up, I shared that I felt like among my chief accomplishments was surviving the past two years, and not simply surviving, but developing (or perhaps discovering is a better word) the internal strength and perseverance to stand strong in the midst of struggle, learning to be comfortable with uncertainty and living in the moment seeing the beauty all around me, and approaching each day with a sense of gratitude for the blessings in my life.
In speaking of my greatest disappointment I focused on the sense that, as one of my colleagues mentioned during the call and as the song says, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” In two days I am beginning a new role in a brand new job, and I am excited about the possibilities that will come from working with a dedicated group of people doing good work that will benefit many. It is work I am familiar with, have done my whole career, and is good and honorable. In spite of that I believe that I have a deeper purpose to fulfill. And while the work I’ll be doing in the new job is somewhat aligned with my life purpose, I recognize that there is still a hole in my heart that needs to be filled, a call that needs to be answered. The educator John Dewey said, “To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure the opportunity to do it is the key to happiness.” I have spent the better part of my life trying to figure out what my calling is, what I am “fitted to do.” It has remained somewhat elusive to me, though I’ve gotten hints from time to time.
So I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. And you know what? That’s okay. In fact I believe that as I step forward into my current role, my life purpose, my calling is going to find me, I won’t have to go looking for it at all. In the meantime, my task is to be faithful to the work that is in front of me, doing my best in excellence and integrity until such time as I am nudged to move on. That really is the best each of us can do. Not everyone figures out what they’re “fitted” to do, what their calling is, what their life work is meant to be. Those who do and “secure the opportunity to do it” are exceptionally fortunate. For the rest of us, we do our work as faithfully as we can and open our hands to let come the next opportunity. We might not have yet found what we’re looking for, but we’re also not standing idly by waiting for it.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? What indeed?
