Walking Retreat - Day 3

Part III: Perspective
Tuesday May 18, 2010

Today I set out on the trip home. Last night I had a dream about work and woke with concerns over the upcoming events, and other quickly approaching deadlines. The progress made over the past few days seemed to evaporate as quickly as the water in this arid countryside. After collecting myself a bit, I realize that my jarring back to reality was inevitable. I also reminded myself that no matter how consuming work can be at times that we are all more than our jobs and titles. Human beings are dynamic and are governed as much by feelings as ideas and thoughts. No matter how logical we’d like to claim to be at our root we are driven by feelings.

I had a couple of hours to wait in the international terminal of the airport before my flight. So I used that time to watch people and think about my trip. As I walked around the terminal the complexity of life struck me like a mack truck. I saw families with children, an old man pushing his wife in a wheelchair, and people conversing in half a dozen languages.

There was no way to tell who these people were just from casual 3rd party observation. You could tell, however, that there were deep relationships, vibrant passions, differing opinions, and many more emotions present in the terminal. If I was still obsessing about the pile of work that was waiting for me I would have missed this reminder about the complexity and beauty of life and relationships.

I guess there really is something to living in the moment.