I'm
preoccupied with purpose. You might even say I'm consumed. It's
been brewing for quite some time (likely around the time I decided to
leave academia and stay home with Yogi), but it has really launched
into fever pitch since the new year began.
At 25
days into 2012, I have spent the bulk (maybe ALL?) of my non-Yogi,
non-wife, non-task driven time thinking about this question of
purpose.
What
am I here to do?
How
should I prepare myself for what comes next?
How am
I using what I've got to contribute to something meaningful?
Being
home with Yogi and nurturing my family was and is a decision that's
all about purpose. I spent years (and I do mean YEARS) preparing for
the career I left to stay home and the decision wasn't an easy one.
It was scary to take such a risk (what if I couldn't get back in the
game?), but at a certain point it was clear. There is no other way
to say it. I thought and thought and prayed and meditated and prayed
and talked endlessly with my wife and then there it was. The answer.
I
would hop off the career track and stay home with the baby.
It was
right for my family.
It was
right for me.
I'm
not sure who it was that said it, but I love the idea of living
life on purpose. It is a kind of inner-directed purpose
that has driven every major decision in my life. Again and again I
have followed this pattern of being faced with the question of what to do next, turning it over and over and over in my mind and then
suddenly (poof!) the answer just comes.
It
doesn't come when I call it, but it does come and when it does,
everything is clear. Just like that. I know what I'm meant to do
and I move forward trusting deeply in the rightness of it. I'm
telling you this because I haven't gotten to the clarity with this
one yet . I'm probably not even close. Here's what I know for sure
so far:
I
won't be home forever. Yogi and Monkey will go to pre-school and
then onto regular school and I will have increasingly empty spaces in
my day.
Bringing
actual money into this house would (in spite of all I know about the
value I am bringing now) feel fabulous. I like to pitch in and do my
part and making a financial contribution is very safe space for me.
The fact that I am emotionally capable of allowing my wife to
shoulder the financial burden for our family is one of the most
significant statements of the degree of trust and safety I have in
this relationship. It's a big deal. I'm totally weird about money.
I want
to find (create?) work that will allow me significant flexibility.
Not only am I impossibly independent and off the charts on “need
for autonomy”, but I have kids. I would love to be home after
school and available for meetings and field trips and whatever it is
that happens at school.
I want
to write something that lots of people will read. Something that is
meaningful and maybe even useful. Something that has to do with
families like ours.
STRANGE
REAL-TIME INTERRUPTION
I am
writing this in a coffee shop and was pausing after that last
sentence when I started tuning into the conversation at the next
table. Beside me is a maybe 8 year old girl with her father. They
have been working on what looks like some kind of school assignment
for the last little bit. I just realized that the little girl is
reading a passage over and over and this is what it is:
Ask,
and it shall be given you
Seek,
and ye shall find
Knock,
and it shall be opened unto you
Now
they are discussing it. How crazy is that?!!!
BACK
TO THE ACTUAL POST
The trouble is that I'm not sure what that looks like yet. What form it might take. I'm wrestling with it and although whatever change comes will be a few years off, I want to be ready for it. I like to be prepared, to have the ground work all laid out.
But.... I'm not there yet. For now, I'm just making myself available for what comes. I guess what I'm doing is asking and seeking and knocking. That sounds pretty zen, doesn't it? Only because you can't hear my fingers tapping on the table beside the keyboard.
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