One Body, Many Parts

How often does an hour or two during your life end up surprising you?

A couple hours of my day honestly surprised me today.

This morning I met a friend for coffee and a quick breakfast.  We had made plans last week to meet and discuss some stuff we had briefly exchanged views on.  Because of this previous huddle, I figured that I knew what we are going to talk about.

I really should not “figure” on situations like this.

The first half hour was catching up on his children and an exploration of his family’s summer vacation.  Soon the conversation turned to a book that we have both read, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”, by Donald Miller.

I gained much from this conversation.

Here is what I gained:

• there are many different parts of any endeavor and if any of those parts are missing, there will be failure
• many times in order to see your dream realized you have to give it up and let it become someone else’s dream or morph into someone else’s dream or vision
• there isn’t a whole lot in life you can accomplish all by yourself

As the day went on, as usual, I forgot about our conversation until I sat down after dinner and reminisced on the morning.  I gained much and I’m glad I had a chance tonight to sit down and get those thoughts onto something that will be be more permanent than my mind.

The next time someone asks you for coffee and you think you know what the discussion will be about, I invite you to go into it with no assumptions.

When was the last time life surprised you?

…running through my mind…

What auditor class REALLY taught me

One month ago today, I was starting my first day in an auditor class, realizing I had no idea how to pass the class.  The class was focusing on something that was pretty foreign to me, and something that I was not all that passionate about.  For that week I learned new acronyms, learned manufacturing language, and attempted to sound like I knew what I was talking about during mock audits, I felt completely lost and wondered why I had set myself up for such a failure that was inevitable.  As the week progressed, I became more comfortable with my classmates and the class content.  The stress level at the beginning of the week was something I was not used to, yet towards the end there was still stress, but I was dealing with it much differently.

Now fast-forward to today.  Today is the eve of my current supervisor’s last day.  He is moving on to manage a larger flight department in a completely different country and operating in a thoroughly divergent type of environment than he has been in the last decade; and possibly an environment than he has ever operated in.  I think about the challenges that are awaiting him and the huge opportunity that awaits.  I can relate to it a bit, by thinking about what I was experiencing just a month ago.  I was able to call home and talk to my family a little each day; I was able to run a little each day; I was able to eat and sleep; however that is where a familiar life stopped.  Everything else was foreign and I imagine for my supervisor it will be this way for more than a week.  My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this time.

With his departure our department will  have new challenges and opportunities; I’m pretty excited to see where we go.  Change is scary at times, but no matter what the direction we travel from here, it feels right to have this expatriation from our department at this time.  The next few weeks or months, in some areas, might feel a little like those first few days at my auditor class.  However, I know that with that feeling there will also be a light that we will begin to see.  Eventually we will get our sea legs and operate without our leader of 7 years and because he built such a cohesive team, we might even do a few things better without his direction. 

That auditor class taught me a lot more than auditing.  It taught me to keep working and learning; keep using the resources that are surrounding me; keep my mind open to other resources that could help; keep sleeping, eating, running, and spending time with my family, and in the end it will all work out.

…running through my mind…

A little push….

Almost every time that I run alone, I get a thought that I mull over for the short “Keith” time that I have.  If I don’t write those thoughts down pretty quickly after I run, life takes over and I forget not only where I was going with my thoughts, but also what the thought was in the first place.   I immediately wrote this one down and have been mulling it over, ever since.

Many times a comment from a friend or an acquaintance is the impetus for these thoughts.  Two Friday’s ago, an acquaintance from High School posted a quote on her Facebook page that I proceeded to dissect approximately 63 different ways over the 4 hours I have run ever since.  Here’s the quote;

If you’ve never met the devil in the road of life, it’s because you’re both heading in the same direction

If you connect with “the devil”, then leave it.  If not, insert another word that has as strong a meaning as “the devil” does for this person.  (In my opinion, they are all the same type of words, they are all something that truly sucks the life out of you)  Here are some thoughts; evil, hate, terror, the beast, the demon, the wicked, the wrathful, the spiteful, the obscene, destruction, the hellish, the out-of-touch, the hurtful, the offensive, the vile, the corrupt, the ruinous and just plain “the MEAN”.  Substitute your words and re-read the sentence.  Think about it for a bit.

The more I thought about my friend’s statement, the more I agreed with it.  The statement made me feel as though, if I were not experiencing some sort of occasional wicked adversity in my life, then I was quite possibly traveling in the same direction as this nefarious antagonist.  This agrees with me because the times in my life that I have not experienced wicked adversity; I have mostly sat on my hands and lost touch with life – let life pass me by and disconnected from what was really going on around me. 

Two days later I went for a run.  A windy, blustery day for a run.  Leaves had covered anything that did not move.  As I ran and the wind blew, it became obvious – because of these leaves – that I was not running “with” the wind.  The wind seemed to constantly be in my face, as were the leaves and everything else that summer had pasted to the ground.  However, towards the end of my run, the wind did gust from behind and it traveled just a few miles per hour faster than I was running.  I couldn’t hear anything else other than the leaves and wind moving with me. My thoughts went to a place that was of affirmation, acceptance and peace.  It felt like the whole world was moving in unison.  I felt like I was right where I should be.

It was then that I realized, during these times we experience any wicked adversity in our lives, there are those quick moments that make it worth the struggle.  A little push from somewhere – to attest that you are on the right path.

…running through my mind…