Saturday, May 21, 2011

Item #46: On Finding Your Path

Sometimes people ask of me,
How do I know what I should be?
As I grow up,
Before I'm old,
What is my path?
Can it be told?

When I was young,
My Dad would say,
Work is hard, it isn’t play,
Your path in this,
Cannot be told,
It comes to you,
It just unfolds.

Others would speak,
Of a five-year plan,
Do you know where you’re going?
Are your goals all in hand?
Take the right job,
To get to that place,
That spot in the distance,
That you’ve crafted, that space.

I tried that,
The planning, the charting my way,
But something unexpected would always appear,
Throw me off balance,
Fill me with fear.
Then what should I do?
With the plans that I’d made?
Was all lost, all for nothing?
Have I failed, have I strayed?

Over time, I’ve decided,
That thinking of work,
As a rigid, unchanging, plan with a goal,
Is a hardship and a burden,
And no way to feed a soul.

Work should be fun,
Work should fuel you,
Work you enjoy,
Is work you’ll look forward to.

So instead now I say,
Forget the long distance, forget the planned path,
Instead decide what works for today.

What makes you happy?
What do you like?
What keeps your mind active,
In the middle of the night?
What would you do if you weren’t being paid?
If you had extra time, where would your energy be laid?

How can you make decisions,
About a future far away?
No need to worry about tomorrow,
When you’re living fully in today.

The career of the future,
Will be to shape, to learn, to play.
It will be discovering along the way.
It’s a long and winding journey,
Along a path sometimes unseen,
But this way, looking behind you,
You’ll feel good about where you’ve been.

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