I had a very pointed question asked of me yesterday on my
birthday. The question was, simply, “What is missing?”
The context of this question is that my response to how I
was and how I was doing were both, “OK.”
I woke up at 3am with this question on my mind and wasn’t
able to get back to sleep so I thought I about it. The culmination of my
thoughts is below.
I am not necessarily the most positive person. I know this.
I don’t think I ever have been that type of person. I’ve always been one to
smirk instead of smile. I also tend to focus on the negative side of things
first before the positive. I don’t care so much that the glass is half empty
vs. half full. I just care that there is half of the glass that doesn’t have
beer in it. There were times in my life, where I was the happiest person I
knew. I woke up every day excited at the prospect of the day. It didn’t matter
if I had gotten 10 hours of sleep or 3; I had energy and was ready to attack
the day. For me during this time, my life was great. Ever since that time, I
have been trying to get that feeling back.
Fast forward to today, and I know what is missing. It,
actually, is quite simple. I don’t have that sense of fullness or completeness as
a person that I had when I was happy. Maybe those missing things are from my
personal life, and maybe they are from my professional life. Either way,
something is missing. There were two times in my life when I considered myself
happiest. One was when I lived in Ft. Benning, GA from 2003 through June 2004 and
the other in Colorado Springs from 2009-2011. My personal life in GA was very
different than my personal life in CO. In GA, I was in a love with a woman and
I knew she loved me back. We were, at the time, talking about “our” future and
how “we” would do things together and spend that future. In Colorado, I wasn’t
in a relationship but I had a great group of friends who I could count on, hang
out with, and who reciprocated the friendly affection I had for them. Professionally,
in GA I had a job that I loved because I felt like I made a difference and I
went to work for people who I respected and, more importantly, from whom I
learned positively on a daily basis (by positively I mean I learned what TO DO
instead of what NOT TO DO). In Colorado, I had a job that was OK but again I
felt like I made a difference and I had a boss from whom I learned a great
deal.
As I look at my life here in Dallas, I don’t even know how
to characterize my personal life. I have been out with a few girls down here,
but there was not that “spark” with any of them. One woman was everything I
SHOULD have wanted. She was a doctor. She was intelligent, fun, attractive, and
all those other things that should point to a connection. The problem, thought,
was that there was no connection. Looking back on my time spent with her I
would have to say it was, at best, a way to pass the time. I went out with
another woman who had many of the same qualities, but there was no interest
from either person in being more than friends. Professionally, I go to work
because it’s a job. I don’t dislike what I do. In fact, when looking at the big
picture of my profession, I like being a consultant. Day-to-day, though, I don’t
really enjoy it. I don’t know if it is the environment, the people, the
specific account and client. I just know that it doesn’t jazz me up with
excitement when I wake up in the morning.
Who knows…maybe I am burned out from the combination of long
hours of work and school and am just a bit melancholy right now. Hopefully
going to Brazil for the World Cup will give me a new and fresh perspective on
things. I know my life doesn’t suck by any stretch of the imagination. I also
know that I do not have the most difficult life. I just know that the pieces
aren’t fitting together quite right at the moment and I need to do something so
that they fit together better.
