The first two weeks of this new interim state of unemployment, I did life maintenance: iPhone fixed, car detailed, checkbook balanced, direct deposit set up for unemployment benefits.
Last week, I started doing spiritual maintenance.
I retreated by myself to the woods.
I read 48 Days to the Work You Love in the hammock in the evenings, then reflected during my rigorous daily training hikes. Dang, this book goes real deep, real fast:
- If your job changes, does your purpose change?
- What have been the happiest, most fulfilling moments in your life?
- If nothing changed in your life in the next five years, would that be okay?
No. It wouldn’t be okay.
How come? Because I’m off-mission.
Slightly, but enough to make life a lot harder than it needs to be. Sacrificing energy from my deepest needs to simply making do.
Take one of my hikes last week: I wanted to finally reach Barrett Spur, an 8,000 ft. rock outcropping on Mt. Hood’s north face, which I have camped below many times. About a mile or two in, the trail was completely obscured with snow. Options included: turn around and attempting a different time, go up the snow using crampons for the first time and follow GPS along the trail or bushwhacking the ridge along the basin. Even though there wasn’t a trail to follow, choosing the third option seemed less risky and less scary. It also took HOURS to cover a couple miles and depleted enough energy that I almost turned around at the trail junction, instead of proceeding to the Spur summit.
My fear was getting in the way of my goal. Not only achieving the goal, but in the simplest way possible, with energy to spare.
I only made it to the top because a kind, older man came along. He was also pooped, but way happy to lead the way having done the Spur many times before.
This is why I’m rereading this book. This is why I’m training to summit Mt. Hood. This is why I’m being intentional about this time-off as a Sabbatical instead of just “funemployment.” I sense I’m not fully delivering what I was put on earth to do in this lifetime yet, even though work – my job, career and even vocation – has taken up so much of my time. It has also taken a disproportionate amount of energy and sacrificed other parts of having and sharing a full, integrated life with a family of my own.
I want to level up. Not accomplish more things, but break through the fears. Learn balance, gain accountability, act selflessly.
It has been a beautiful life. Just harder than it needs to be.
I’m close to the trail, but not on it. That is what needs to change in my life over the next five years.
May you notice extra efforting this week, and adjust accordingly.
Love,
Jules
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