What Am I Doing?
Like most of us, I like a good story.
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As a kid, I don't remember having too many experiences where I loved the actual experience of doing something, the process of it, without any consideration of the outcome generating some form of achievement. In other words, I don't remember many things where the doing was the achievement. Most of my life, starting from a pretty young age, has been about external achievement - much of that began through sports. Don't get me wrong - I'm a sports fan, and have come to love them more now in my post-playing day, just with a different perspective. I had a lot of good moments from my sports days (some also not so great), but most of that revolved around the external success - the win, the award, the recognition, etc.
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The one exception to this external achievement orientation was when I was 10 or so and had a school assignment to write a story. For the first time, and perhaps only time, the process was the reward. I came home and I wrote, through dinner and back and for the next few days until I had it finished. I think the assignment called for 10 pages or so, mine was close to double that. I don't remember much of the story, and I have no memory of how "good" it was, but it was good to me because I wrote it and enjoyed doing it. Years later, I'd find myself doing that with papers in my upper level college courses and business school - 20 page requirements turned to 30 pages with a forced stop. Of course, I was even more focused on external achievement at that point. More credits, degrees, certifications, etc. That turned into a world of finance and investment banking (fortunately boutique not Wall Street so 60 hours instead of 80+) and then decided to throw on the CFA program to try to "level" myself with a Wall Street or Ivy League type. I like learning no doubt, but the designation was about the designation.
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This brings us mostly to the present. Several months post-CFA Charter completion, still in the investment banking world but those CFA hours have turned mostly into reading, meditation, thinking, and now, writing. As I've been able to step back and look inward I've started to realize some of the things that I love today, I've always loved and didn't think they were worth giving my time to because there wasn't an external achievement to get.
I've been fortunate to accomplish many of my goals and live a life that I have dreamt of. Yet, I feel something missing. All the external validation seems to have come up short. So, this site has nothing to do with money or status or external validation. It's me working through my story and learning how to write it. It's me entering the fog in my mind, the confusion and darkness that has been there, and taking a stroll into it. Not fearing it, not leaving it, just working my way through it until I can start to see a little better. Whether that's because I get to the "other side" or because my "vision" adapts I don't know, but I think it's the right thing to do and I'll find myself in it.
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I'm not sure how many answers or conclusions to find here, but maybe sometimes we tend to pay too much attention to the "answer" and so I'm going to focus on exploring the thoughts and questions, then see where they go. Question with humility and think with boldness. Maybe we'll learn something together. And maybe once we can see through the fog, we can see the beauty that exists all around us and the beauty in the broken.
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My hope is that one day this blog will be a historical account of how my story progressed from this point on and that it will be one I can consider a good story. One that I'd want to share, one that I can be proud of. Maybe one that can help someone else, but at the very least, writing about the creation of my own path of becoming.