A New Path

Our world is changing. Every single day. I realized recently that this year has presented all of us with a unique opportunity that we haven’t had as a nation or even a society in a very long time. That opportunity is redefinition.

Over the last many months we have been forced to reevaluate all of what we hold dear and probably more importantly, truly think about what we find is most important in the world around us. Many people have spent more time with their families than they have had the opportunity or in some cases wanted to. Adults were forced out of their comfort zones into new working experiences, new roles and found themselves taking on a brand new set of responsibilities.

I was no different. As a 33 year old I was a teacher and a playmate for my son. I was a cook, a housekeeper (more than I would have ever liked) and also the occasional bartender for my wife and I. I had an abundance of time to reflect on who I was, what I stood for and what I wanted my life to mean beyond the everyday joy and meaning that I get from being a father and a husband.

Disturbing as that existential crisis was, I found myself upset by what I realized. I didn’t like what I was becoming. I had told myself more than 10 years earlier that I wasn’t going to turn into a middle aged man that had settled in a career that they did not like because it was stable or comfortable. I promised that I was going to make sure that my life was impactful on others and the world even if I wasn't sure exactly what that meant. I wanted to be sure that I was someone that I would be proud of. Lofty aspirations, but in truth it wasn’t happening. I was becoming the very thing that I had definitively told myself I was not going to be. So in the midst of the biggest change the world had experienced in quite some time, I decided that I, myself, needed to redefine who I was and what was important to me.

So here I am.

I am embarking on a journey into a world I have long thought about, a place that I feel most at home in despite not having much of the courage I needed to go there. I am setting myself on a another leg of the nontraditional path. A road I have tentatively traveled throughout my life. A road that is rarely tread upon and often hard to find. A road I left a while ago, but have finally found myself on again. Welcome to the beginning of a new path.