Chop Wood, Carry Water, or Simply Shovel Snow

There is something to be said for physical work, like shoveling.  When I first started shoveling snow this morning, it was about the process.  I am, by nature, systematic in how I do things.  I am a planner and a thinker and then I ask myself, "if I'm to put one foot in front of the other to get where I want to go, what does the next step look like?"  This week was absolutely chock full of pivotal moments:  An owner of a business that we work with, died unexpectedly at the age of 64.  Then, I taught a class in the Culture of Service.  Finally, I had my review at work from my leadership.

As I'm shoveling snow, I'm considering that the death of Mr. Masters, at the age of 64, was TIME giving me a "shake" to wake me up and do what I'm going to do - to live my dreams and build the world I want to wake up to.  I turn 60 this year.  I have worked my whole life to build others to greatness, and I have been asking, for quite some time, when it would be my turn.  My trip to Canada was another "shake", this time with love and words and examples of women who are committed to living their dreams and to creating the world THEY want to wake up to.  As I'm resting on the handle of my snow shovel and contemplate the deep snow on the driveway, and I consider, as Robert Frost put it, the miles I have to go before I sleep, I realize that there are two key questions I need to be asking myself in the light of Mr. Master's demise and my reflections: the first question is, "If I were to die tomorrow, where would I want to be?"  Then I had to laugh at myself, because shoveling this amount of snow at the age of 60 might just put me in the ground in the dead of winter in cold ass Wisconsin.  The second question I had to ask myself was, "If I'm going to live my dreams and wake up to the world I want to build, where would I do that?"  Again, as I started back to shoveling the seemingly endless mounds of white punishment, I realized, very definitively, that it wasn't in cold ass Wisconsin.  Strike two.  I want to die with the sound of the ocean on a beach, and warm temperatures, and seabirds.  I want to be surrounded  by people who don't measure my worth in terms of whether I am an asset or a liability, but who truly value me as a blessing and an irreplaceable part of their world just as they are of mine.

Then there is the Culture of Service class that I taught.  It was a great class, and I love the people and the material because it speaks to my heart and to the core of my being.  At the end of the class I wrote a LOVE letter to the class.  Here is what I wrote:

I want to live in a world where service to each other is like breathing.  Where we DO understand that the world IS round - and that what goes around comes around, and we INTENTIONALLY plant the seeds of service KNOWING that, like the pebble in the pond, our actions will send ripples out, reverberating through our world, and around the world.  I'm tired of and saddened by people who are fearful:  fearful of being taken advantage of, fearful of being made a fool of, fearful of ending up on the short end of the stick, or being "found out" in some way. I want you to connect with others in meaningful ways and to come to understand how AMAZINGLY important you are; how IRREPLACEABLE you are in the lives of those you touch, even though, for many of those lives, you will never know the impact you have made, and I want you to know how important THEY are to you, the shoulders upon which you stand today are those who CHOSE to serve you. So, I facilitate this class with the intention of being a part of this EXTRAORDINARY opportunity to help you help us. It's about caring and moving us, collectively towards a heart of service that truly honors our humanity and enriches the interdependent world THAT LIES AT THE HEART of what we have built, as individuals, as families, as communities, as cultures, as HUMANITY. For you, it all begins with the realization that ANYONE becomes your customer the moment you have the opportunity to serve, and that SERVICE is meeting the needs of someone else. You can change lives through your opportunities to serve - you have the potential for GREATNESS.

Finally, I had my review this week.  It was a good review, even a great review, but it clearly outlined to me my asset and liability value and it left me feeling empty and void of any sense of there being anything that even remotely looks or feels like my dreams or the world I want to wake up to.  At the end of a year I'm a number...an assessment of an asset.  As I'm chipping away at the mound of hard, iced snow at the foot of the driveway that the plows had left, I thought, "Is this how I really want to live my life?...to end my life?...in cold ass Wisconsin...a number?...Really?...Really? 

The piles of snow at the foot of the driveway are so tall, that I find that I have to walk shovels of snow and ice from the bottom of the driveway up to the top of the driveway in order to be able to toss the snow over the ever increasing piles that frame the drive.  Sometimes life is like that, it gets so piled up around you that you can't see over the piles to what lies beyond.  I'm in the process of making it possible to see the future and to have a sense of a path forward.  I look forward to what the future holds and to what lies ahead, and I am absolutely sure that, if I die unexpectedly at the age of 64, I will die in a place where I want to be, doing what I want to do, valued by people who LOVE me unconditionally and who understand how important we are to each other.