It is Friday and on self-imposed deadline I am faced with writing yet another blog post. I am to share the things that have inspired me – the treasures I have collected over a week of wandering the web. But this afternoon, alone and cold at my table I do not feel inspired. I do not feel the clarity of mind this task requires. I feel swamped. I feel exhausted. I feel that all I have found this week on the information super-highway are dust and dead ends. I feel overwhelmed by the noise.
Somewhere, in all of this hustle and bustle and muscle, I have lost my self.
So I leave the computer. I step away to clear some dishes and fold two basket-fulls of laundry. I don’t turn on the radio. I think and I pray and I try to hear. I try to clear. I realize that, this Friday, what I really need to find is my self.
I realize that I have fallen prey to that trick of self-importance – I have made myself the sum of what I make. My work has begun to define me. I have begun, again, to forget my true identity. I forgotten, again, to simply be a child of God, and not his worker-bee. He needs nothing from me, after all.
As a creative person, hungry for validation from others – hungry to know I am not alone – it is easy to lose myself in the worst of ways. It is easy to build a false self based on what I am able to accomplish. It is easy to climb a ladder and teeter more dangerously the higher I rise. This afternoon I needed to climb back down to the ground.
And from the ground, I was able to take stock, to reboot, and to find something of value to share here after all.
There are many ways I find my self in these moments. I'd love to share some, and I’d love to hear what works for you.
Here are some ‘finds’ that are helping me find myself today.