Perspective

Today I had a very stressful day. Although in general, and in comparison to other days It wasn’t as bad, for some reason it just got to me. A sense of feeling that my career was at its peak, that there was nowhere else to go from here. I understood then that while I may be feeling down, really what I was lacking was perspective.

Now generally, when people ”get perspective”, it is really an exercise in managing one’s expectations. It’s like every Country song there is about how great life is in a small little house, with two children and just enough money for that truck, content watching the children play and grow old with one another. I was not raised to be content watching myself grow old; the yearning to ride into the sunset having completed or achieved one good thing was never enough for me. There needs to be another hill, frontier, another challenge ahead, another adventure to be had.

I suppose this is why my wife and I are such a good couple: we are constantly moving and evolving and we thrive in the knowledge that we do. We may be stuck because of the age of our children, but we are not content just sitting here and letting life run its course.

And so it is especially frustrating for me, a career focused product executive, to assume a posture that - to me - amounts to “giving up”. And while I understand that I am extra-ordinarily lucky to have made it not just as far as I have, but also worked my way into the position at this company, I cannot be satisfied with the exclusive attribution to pure luck; surely, my own abilities, talent and contributions make up the reason for my achievement? If so, then not making more moves - will that mean that I have “petered out”? Is this where I am supposed to ride into the sunset, content having watched the children grow?

I just cannot accept that this is all there is. What lack of perspective I must appear to have, thinking that this could go on. But what others might call naive, I know as intuition. Surfing is knowing when and where to be, and to paddle your ass off to catch the wave as it came. My past contributions did not produce the wave, but my preparation and ability causes me to catch it, should I choose to do so.

If that is true, then this may be the end - here. But it may also simply point at the next wave, and all I need to do is move on and try to catch it.