What are we doing?

Many of us are readers, who will open a new book, read a blog post every morning and through all of the reading have a desire to find.

I remember when my business was plummeting, my life was full of pain, struggle was my existence.  At the time I was working at an airline as a baggage handler where I would work back to back shifts for two and a half straight days so I could get 5 eight hour shifts in and still have four and a half days to work at my failing business.

The job was manual labor and I would wear cargo pants so I could carry around a book in my pocket.  Anytime the work would pause, in between flights etc, I would just sit where I was and read.  I read a lot of Grisham, a lot of the Bible, Machiavelli, and much more.  In an ironic turn, I read the Four Hour Work Week there for the first time there, and then a few more times!

I remember diving into a new book hoping there was an answer.  The Four Hour Work Week was brand new and I thought maybe I was catching a wave before anybody else.  Machiavelli was not new, but I thought maybe there was a jewel inside that was now powerful in a changed world.  The craziest part is all of the books I read did have the secrets, did have the nugget I needed.  It just turned out that it was like finding a check for a million dollars while stranded in the woods, it's worthless.

So much of our lives are spent searching and yet what do we do when we find?  I remember sitting at the kitchen table looking Kelsey in the eyes and deciding to close down our business.  I knew it was the answer, the right thing to do, it would give us freedom and the ability to succeed so much more than if we kept it alive.  That being said, two nights ago, probably three years later to the day, I woke up bathed in sadness over the closing of the business.

I was vividly dreaming of the faces I used to see everyday, and my heart slumped over the side of the bed, its face in its hands.

Many of us are looking for an answer, but not many people are advising us to pay attention to what we are doing.  If you are taking a pill to feel better that just means you are taking a pill to feel better, it doesn't matter if a doctor prescribed it to you.  If you are living without purpose do you really think that having sex with somebody will help with purpose, your just having sex with somebody.  And on the other side, if your whole world hurts and you are still closing down a business because that is the right thing to do does it matter how you feel?

Pay attention to what you are doing.

That being said, I've hidden inside of a lot of things because I refused to admit what I was doing somewhere else.  Sometimes what I was hiding inside of was the thing I needed to change... but all I care about now is the doing.

To the best of my knowledge there are a few people out there who get this, but very few of those few people are Christians and that bothers me.  It bothers me because we should be the ones who know what to do, we had a pretty good example.  And it really bothers me because I could use the help personally.