LIFE IS A POEM
Write your own
“What do you want to do when you grow up?”
“Be a cowboy,” I once said…
Later like you I asked
“Where am I going in life?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Again and, again.
Some early have
A definite direction,
Single minded focus,
Like a laser.
Are they the lucky ones?
I wonder what they miss along the way?
One sunny Saturday
Driving to a game in Indianapolis
With my high school lacrosse team,
Two generations grooving to each other’s music,
A player asked
“Coach, what do you want to do?
You know, like when you grow up?”
There it was again.
She was perceptive -
Me, CEO of a big company,
Why was I coaching her team?
But she wasn’t really asking me about me -
She was asking me about her
About all of us
She expected an answer like to
“Be an engineer”
“Go into business”
“Make a lot of money ”
Straight forward answers
Like her career counselor gave her -
Straight forward, and
entirely unsatisfactory.
This time “I don’t know” would not help.
“To be an artist at
living,”
I told her,
“To discover who is Me,
And be
Me.”
“But how do I do that?” she asked.
“Write your own poem.
By indirections,
Explore. Experiment.
Taste. Try.
Look through random prisms
See life from
Unexpected points of view
Different angles
Accidental promontories
Consider what you see
And begin to discover your life’s dimensions
Been to the Grand Canyon?
Which one?
The one at night -
or at dawn?
In winter snow or
in summer heat?
During a fall
breeze
Or a spring thunderstorm?
The Grand Canyon looks different
Up
close
Or far away
From the North Rim
Than the South Rim
Looking down midway in a hike
Or up
Feels different when you are
Lonely
Or happy, sharing
Or remembering through a photograph
Sounds different
When you are really there
At the river
bottom
Or either rim
Yet it’s all
“The Grand Canyon”
But every canyon teaches something
Of who you are
And so,
where you wish to go…
I have discovered things I don’t like to do
And so avoid them
I carve away what does not belong
Until only me is left
I have found things I like to do
Or, which intrigue me
And so pursue them
Wherever they may lead
And share them with those I love.
More
canyons =
More learning.
Time is precious
Cannot be made
Once lost
Cannot be recovered
Do not wait.
No paralysis by analysis.
No point
in planning way far ahead –
“Life
plans” do not go as planned.
Life is
not the enemy
But life
is the enemy of plans.
Socialists
fear free market chaos,
Make “5 Year Plans” for their
economies
Private
equity MBAs demand
5
year profit projections
5 years
out it is all the same -
Resemblance
with real results
Is mostly
fantasy and happenstance.
5 years
after any point in my life
Was I
ever where I had planned I would be,
5 years back?
Not
hardly.
Usually
instead
At
an unimagined location,
Or
in an unimagined situation,
Even
an unimagined avocation.
That
said
Before setting
on an aimless wander
It’s mo’
bettah
To have
some idea of where you are going -
You
have a so much better chance
Of
actually getting there!
So first
consider -
Just for
a moment -
What
past canyons have taught?
And
contemplate
Who you are so far -
Are we
not whom
We
pretend to be?
For me, if life is a game
I wish only to do as I taught my players -
To give everything I’ve got,
So “at the end of the day”
When it’s all over,
I have left nothing between the
white lines.
Having done the best I could,
To be me
Because that is all I ever can be,
Just
me.
And wherever
I end up
There
is my true destination.
Life has
but one measure.
It is
not dollars.
Not
toys.
Not
any numbers,
none at all.
Experience
is life’s currency.
Life’s
measure is only your satisfaction
With
that you have
Done
-
Seen -
Heard -
Tasted –
Loved.
“Not what we have, but what we enjoy
While I hope it may be said of me
That everywhere I lived
Is better for my having lived there.
“What do you want to do when you grow up?”
“Be a cowboy,” I once
said…
[i] William
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2
[ii]
Ferde Grofe, The Grand Canyon Suite
[iii]
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3
[iv]
Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth Von
Moltke the Elder
[v]
Epicurus
[1] William
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2
[1] Ferde
Grofe, The Grand Canyon Suite
[1]
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3
[1]
Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth Von
Moltke the Elder
[1] Epicurus
