A really productive morning this morning, feeling quite satisfied (and you’ll see so by how frequently I use the word below).
Well, “productive” as I measure such things when not working and having no place to be and no time to be there, at least. Spent some time tweaking the next few weeks so that we could make it to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, something I thought we might have to miss given the loose route I’d put together a couple weeks ago. I suppose it’s not any great feat to “fit in” another stop when, again, we’re entirely free agents… but doing a Google Maps visual verification that the route is feasible does give me some satisfaction.
I was talking to a friend this morning and sharing that we’ve spent the past several nights staying at the empty vacation properties of folks’ I’ve met through work. OK, good friends I’ve made through work, more properly. I shared the thought that it’s nice to be able to “trade on the goodwill equity that strong work-friend relationships can build.” Then I realized that expressing it that way makes it sound too “transactional,” and clarified that the sentiment I was trying to communicate is more the satisfaction I feel when the time invested in making genuine connections between humans yields unexpected, and really undeserved, serendipitous benefits. It’s like the universe rewards the effort expended making and maintaining connections.
In fact, maybe that’s it, y’all. Maybe this is all about connections. Meeting people, knowing people, caring for people, helping people, sharing experiences – good and bad and unremarkable… all the qualities and feelings wrapped-up therein… that’s what really moves me. Something here; need to write about this more; working on a Grand Unification theory, I think.
And now we’re off to finish school and get on the lake in kayaks. Hope everyone has a great St. Valentine’s Day. Hugs.
Also written on this day...
- the underground kingdom of SMUD - 2011
- flying home today - 2007
- the two iPod family - 2006