Like a Knife in My Heart....

I owe someone an apology. In preparation for our 20th college reunion, my friend Jay said, "It's like a knife in my heart that we're not young anymore" -- and I immediately told him all the reasons he shouldn't feel that way.

Well, I take it all back.

I love this picture representing the feeling, because it's not gory and it's not sad, and in many ways I think it represents strength. The heart still glows around the blade, and the two seem to be in the process of becoming one.

I knew my return to campus would trigger many conflicting emotions, and I thought I was prepared, but truthfully I did not anticipate the cascade of feeling that I think Jay had in advance.....and perhaps we all had before the weekend was over. The realization that essentially the same amount of time had passed since graduation that had passed from our births to when we all first met was monumental for me. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces, and so many beloved to me. Our lives were different then, and have perhaps become even more different now, but we will always have our Davidson experience during a formative time in our development and that keeps us connected.

What I did not expect was the powerful feeling that this was a turning point.

Going forward, I think I need to not take for granted that Davidson will always bind us, at least to the degree for which I hope and which I need. I am recommitting to these relationships.

The knife may not come out, but the heart will always be strong.

Everything and Nothing

I once heard organizational guru Peter Walsh http://www.peterwalshdesign.com/ say, “When everything is important, nothing is important.”

He was counseling a woman who had lost control of her possessions. All of her things were out on her front yard, and she somehow laid hands on her deceased father’s wallet which had been crammed in the back of a drawer. It was full of pictures of her and her siblings, as well as handwritten notes and other mementos. Bursting into tears, she begged to be allowed to keep it, even though she was in a boot camp of sorts to save her home from clutter.

Walsh reminded her that she had not even known the wallet was there for over 20 years. It made no sense to hold onto it. “But,” she cried, “this is so important! Please!” Gently he pointed out to her that she had not treated this item any differently than she had treated anything else in her house, from random domino pieces chewed up by dogs to moth-worn scarves from her kids’ childhoods 40 years ago. That’s when he laid it on the line. “When everything is important, nothing is important.”

Unlike any other related advice, this stuck with me from the beginning. We so rationalize our attachments that often we lose our ideals to the idea that everything is important. I’ve had multiple experiences over the years where I felt pressure to push someone else’s goals, priorities, or even values up the totem pole in the interest of my own pereceived success.

There is no end to the parade of people who need you to believe that what THEY want from you is important. The question becomes, what is important to YOU? Which of the things you have filed away and stuffed into drawers – literal or metaphorical – are truly important to YOU?

This post first appeared on http://www.corporateidealist.com/ on August 5, 2009. Photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvar/2764272024/.