Go where you are wanted, insist on nothing

Long car drives provide a girl with a chance to think and yesterday, in collecting our son from college, I had that time. A chance to consider my future. A chance to make a decision or two about who I will be, and what might happen next. My career has been a funny thing. And the world: it changes fast.

As I pondered where my business might go next and where I might go with it, I had this utterly simple, surely quite obvious thought: Go only where you are wanted. Because maybe business is about assertion, persuasion, winning, getting the job. But business is also, ultimately, about doing the job—about working companionably with another.  In my line of work—transforming others' knowing or dreams or achievements into meaningful stories and effective publications—words matter, craftsmanship counts, and passion is essential. It's subjective. It's personal. And maybe you can fight your way in through the door, but is that the wisest thing to do if the door doesn't open easily to begin with?

This sounds obvious to you. It sounds obvious to me. But it took a long car drive to ease into the peaceful notion of letting the world come my way, of waiting. I will be missed, or I won't be. I will be needed, or not. But there is only one go-around in this life of ours, and I don't want to spend what's left of mine fighting to be recognized or remembered. Spring is here. There is sun out there, and blooms. That is what is waiting for me at the moment, and I'm opening my door to it.