In The Midst Of Life...

So today at work, my partner turns to me and asks, "What do you want out of life?"

I thought for a minute, and replied, "To enjoy friendship, to love, and to leave the world better than I found it."

I realized that I was getting close to The Place...

The Place?

Okay. You at home can play along. I sprang this on my partner.

Sit back. Get comfy.

Now think about this: What do you want to do before you die? What will make your time on this earth complete?

Try to think of at least three things. But by all means, keep going beyond three.

Take your time.

Right.

Now, imagine that your phone rings. It's your doctor. He has some bad news for you. It seems you've got about three days to live. You won't feel any pain until the very end. But pretty much, your number's up.

How are you going to spend those three days? What are you going to do with yourself?

Here's the life transforming part: why are the answers to those two questions that you just came up with so different? I posed the same question twice. The only thing different was the time frame.

When this gumball for the mind was first presented to me, I was a junior in college, at a conference for campus leaders or something. It was at a workshop on "time management." I went in expecting to hear about how to be more productive by breaking your day into fifteen minute increments or something. What I got was the two questions.

My answer to the first one was something along the lines of, "Get a novel published, spend a year living abroad, own a great house, find a job I enjoy, get my PhD., etc. My answer to the second one was, I'd go to the beach, and bring with me all the people I love and care about. We'd splash in the waves during the day, and sit around a campfire listening to the surf and telling stories at night."

And today, the question from my partner was pretty much the grace of the moment. No matter how he had framed the question, my answer would be the same. Having the same answer to either question is being in The Place.

As in, the good place. The right place. The place where you're supposed to be. The place you want to be. Not the place where you ought to be, or where people think you should be, but the place you are because it's your place.

You're home.

Speaking of being places, I'll be in Vermont this weekend. At the Salt Ash Inn. It's some kind of a dungeon party I've been invited to. At an inn with a hot tub. I don't think I could ask for much more.

Well, okay, it's a five and a half hour drive for me to get there. I could ask for somewhere closer.

But wherever I am, I'm in The Place.

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