Connected

When you are involved in heavy minutiae as is common around the Capitol, it's easy to become lost in the goings on that you may or may not have any direct bearing on your life. In a sense, you become disconnected from your life and become submersed in the affairs of the state, the challenges of your boss, and the details of your job. I have found myself disconnected from my own personal mission as of late. We all require some personal time to reflect on where we are and what progress we have made towards our goals. When you put that time off for too long, you grow disoriented, disconnected, uncentered.

The past couple of weekends were great because I had the opportunity to spend time with my family. The only downside was that I spent my free time with them or on the road. The result is that I had two weeks of mental junk piling up without a moment to go through it and throw out all the useless information. When you collect mental crap, it clogs up your thinking.

This weekend, I am without family and with a few housekeeping tasks to do. I also have a few hours to devote to mental housekeeping. The result has been great. I had something happen recently that really hurt my dignity. I think that if I had not had the opportunity to decompress and look at the big picture of my life, I may have made a poor decision. In retrospect, it doesn't matter; my life is not affected in one way or the other. So long as I can put food on the table, provide shelter for my family, and live a good life, the rest is just chaff that gets blown away in the wind. Very few of us have the chance to become great people and even fewer have the ability to do it successfully without losing ourselves. I doubt that I'm destined for greatness, let alone have the ability to deal with it; I would be better served with focusing on my humble needs. So, I have a clean slate and am ready for more.

If there is a lesson to be gleaned from this post, it should be that when you are lost in a forest of details, it helps to take some time to put your head above the treetops to make sure you are going in the right direction. Sometimes problems seem huge until you look at the big picture and realize that it's an inconvenience that doesn't really matter. Deal with it or forget it, and move on to your goal.