I grew up with a "teacher" mother as evidenced by the snake skin in a jar kept around the house for years.  A little something along with many other little somethings that I willingly forgot over the past two decades.  Until this morning.  Leaving jobs in our 20's can feel like shedding that layer of skin.  They say snakes shed to allow room for more growth, and to remove parasites.  Both seem oddly consistent with my past experience. (Yes, I guess I just called myself a snake.)

My mom would refer to the snake by name.  In fact, she would refer to his skin in the jar by name. He had shed many memories in our garden over the years. At least, this is how I remember it.  You have to keep in mind I was five when we moved away and left that good friend behind.  I didn't see the jar again either. So perhaps I remember it all wrong.

But this morning, he came to mind. We grow like mad in our 20s, leaving skins in offices, apartments and sometimes relationships. The air around us getting too tight, squeezing us until the time we can crawl out of it.  And it's bitter sweet, leaving a shell of ourselves in each place.  Saying goodbye to a part of who we are, who we've been and accepting the cold air on our new unknown skin.  It is vulnerable just as it is exciting.

I'm feeling squeezed and there will definitely be some fresh skin soon, but right now I'm trying to figure out what to shed.  And how to shed it.  Leaving an environment, closing a door becomes the obvious and easy solution for change and growth for our generation.  We don't like it? We leave it.  But what about when we could change it?  And is everything worth changing? Or are we wasting our youth and energy?

Someone taught me back in college about the truth of trajectory.  It's not about where you are, it's about where you're headed.  Once you grasp that, you realize that every small decision you make in your youth can drastically change where you wake up in your 40s.  Little decisions can be big.  And big decisions can determine a lot more than your salary.

But the whole trajectory truth would be a lot easier if you knew exactly where you wanted to wake up at the end.  You could just work backwards from there.  Some do.  I don't.

Thank God for counsel and wisdom but now, I need increased vision. And vision has to be your own, no one can give you your vision. I have to decide to step one way or the other. And while Mr. Frost would have you believe it's the one path least traveled that bears the reward, he missed the fact that no one else has the two unique paths to choose from that you do. They are both untraveled as of yet.  You choose. It's not least or most, it's left or right.

Go watch this Ted Talk Playlist:  Work Smarter.  Especially, watch the second one in the playlist, "The Happy Secret to Better Work."

Keep watching - past all the obnoxious teenage girl screaming - because the speech is pretty incredible. Gotta say - I loved him.... since he FIRST got cool.  Because let's be honest, Chris was never not cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fepUlDbx5Y&feature=youtu.be


PS Good thing my boyfriend is one of the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful men walking around. ;) 

"...And for every day you paint the war, take a week and paint the beauty, the color, the shape of the landscape you’re marching towards.  Everyone knows what you’re against; show them what you’re for." 

- Andrea Gibson, Evolution

What a beautiful reminder.  Thank you, Esther.  

"I am convinced that, until we have looked into darkness, we cannot know what a divine thing vision is."

-Hellen Keller

"...because True Dreamers Are Fighters."

^ it's a link.  Go read it. 

There's a reason why I like being this girl's friend so much.  Okay, there's a couple. ;)  But reading things like this, it becomes undeniably clear why God saw fit to join us (and others) together.

"Vision will prioritize your values.  A clear vision has the power to bring what's most important to the surface of your schedule and lifestyle.  A clear vision makes it easy to weed out of your life those things that stand in the way of achieving what matters most.  Vision empowers you to move purposefully in a predetermined direction.  Once you have clarified your vision, or visions, many decisions are already made.  Without vision, good things hinder you from achieving the best things.

My observation is that people without clear vision are easily distracted.  They have a tendency to drift from one activity, pleasure, or relationship to another.  Without vision, there is no relational, financial, or moral compass.  Consequently, they often make foolish decisions.  Decisions that rob them of their dreams."

Andy Stanley, Visioneering

Excerpts from an article in the New York Times on recent graduates.

"...Most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life....Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.

The graduates are also told to pursue happiness and joy. But, of course, when you read a biography of someone you admire, it’s rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration. It’s the things they did to court unhappiness — the things they did that were arduous and miserable, which sometimes cost them friends and aroused hatred. It’s excellence, not happiness, that we admire most.

Finally, graduates are told to be independent-minded and to express their inner spirit. But, of course, doing your job well often means suppressing yourself. As Atul Gawande mentioned during his countercultural address last week at Harvard Medical School, being a good doctor often means being part of a team, following the rules of an institution, going down a regimented checklist.

Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself."


Go read this whole article on Braden's blog. (Beware of excerpts. Read the article)

Many wait for and expect natural manifestation of their dreams without putting work, responsibility and effort into that dream. We must wholly invest ourselves – spirit, soul and body – into the dreams that He puts in our hearts. It is not enough to dream, get a revelation and vision. Get it, then just do it.

-John Belt