Contribution is the great precursor to the places, moments, events, feelings, and fulfillment we’re all after.
He occurs before…
the promotion,
success,
having a follower,
having a following,
“thank you”,
“I’ll have another”,
&
“Welcome back”.
Contribution…the holiest pre-party you could ever host.
Chances are you cannot recall what you ate for dinner two nights ago, the bullet points of last night’s State of the Union Address, or the majority of your emails received yesterday.
Nevertheless, today we all will divinely cross paths with someone needing us in a special moment. A defining moment conducted, designed, and orchestrated via the Muse.
It could look like doctor with patient, Realtor with buyer, mother with child, cop with victim, banker with businessman, coach with player, teacher with student, pastor with church member, barista with coffee lover, leader with follower, or counselor with shaken soul.
While this moment may be an everyday experience for you, chances are it’s a frozen moment in time for your customer, user, client, or child.
Your art and music will change when you realize that the receiver of your art and music will revisit this moment often.
Really. We need awareness of just how significant our moments are.
This moment may not define you, but it most definitely will define something about the other party involved in this moment.
“Get a job.” That’s the mantra that upper level education has seared into our minds. And yet, today, it’s been harder than ever to find “that” job that you listened, studied, memorized, and tested four plus years for.
Perhaps this whole job pursuit is overrated? For instance, I know numerous people much smarter and better educated than I ever will be that are in the “perfect” job they prepared for. All to find that “perfect” place to be empty of experience, fulfillment, and meaning.
Rather, what if the pursuit was a search for a medium, a platform, a canvas, or a stage for you to express yourself and expose the world to what you feel, hear, and see that the rest of us don’t see but need to see?
You see, they took our Crayons from us when we got to junior high and we’ve been lost without them ever since. In the blink of an eye, our education experience went from being look what I painted, colored, or made to look who’s on the A team, look who’s pretty, or look who’s cool. One day we’re all in the talent show, the next day we’re lucky to be in the crowd watching the talent show.
If LTMPblog has any hope or purpose at all, may it be that it helps to spur you or any reader to find that something or some place that the world sees in black in white, but you see in color. If so, I believe you will have found your job. But please, at the proverbial cocktail parties don’t just tell people what you “do”. Instead, enlighten them to that which you expose. Entrepreneurs, artists, leaders, and world-changers are those that expose us to the colors unseen.
Your Box of Crayons > Your Diploma
Today I celebrate my 10,950th sunrise on planet Earth.
Here’s a quick rant and recap of what I’ve found (or what’s found me) in these sunrises….
Before age 22 everything is about the finish line: finish your veggies, finish your paper, finish studying, finish high school, finish college, finish your resume, etc.
And while all these things can be finished…they still leave us longing for more. I believe the longing comes from not being responsible for the start of what you were asked to finish. The veggies were forced (for good reason of course), as was the test, the paper, school, and probably the resume. None of this was our idea, so when they were finished we were…well…finished…and finished does not necessarily translate into satisfied or fulfilled when it is something you didn’t think to start.
Perhaps it is simply permission to start something that our youth needs – not necessarily the “opportunity.”
Today I’ve found that what I’m truly after doesn’t have a finish line and every day in this pursuit feels as though it’s day one. To be able to write, understand, and speak this is richness found in my life.
I don’t want to finish growing, being a father, being a husband, or being a thought leader…a finish line is the furthest thing from my mind in regards to these pursuits.
If you’ve never been given permission to start…consider this your invitation.
Secondly, two years ago I began to learn and study things that truly excited me. Things like high performance, building things with meaning, living at your full potential, and living a great story.
I’ve found for all these things to happen there’s a fight.
We fight for experience against resistance with intention.
We fight for connection against resistance with soul.
We fight for awareness against resistance with focus.
Nevertheless, this is a fight that never ends…we can only hope to contain the resistance that blocks our efforts for experience, connection, awareness, meaning, and hope.
In all reality, resistance makes all of these things worth the pursuit…so either welcome him to the ring or don’t be shocked when he arrives.
Forget the finish line and fight the fight tooth and nail.
For me, this is what 30 looks like.
PS – This is a rant – and should not be graded with a gramatical lens.
Paralyzed: To make unable to move or act due to:
Give in to just one of these and you run the risk of pulling the pen for the grenade on your thing, idea, service, product, art, or music.
Don’t look backwards and careful with the questions you ask yourself. Sure you can connect the dots looking backwards, but we’re all wanting help connecting the hidden dots of what lies ahead of us.
Ashton.Gustafson 