The Next Step...

After having spent a considerable amount of time considering my future, I realized I have been asking the wrong questions.

Throughout our lives, we are evolving, changing, sometimes morphing into a person we have a hard time recognizing. When this happens, we have to reacquaint ourselves with the person we have become. Why we have changed is less important than what we have become. What was important and significant to us in the past may cease to be important or significant.

At the beginning of each of the major periods of our lives, we declare a mission statement. We lay out our most important goals and our individual unique takes on the world. In that mission statement, we define our place in the world and the larger scheme of things. Events and circumstances alter our perception what we really want out of life... about where we fit in.

I find myself having ended one period of my life and now beginning the last part of my brief strut upon the stage. I am not sure which of Shakespeare's Ages of Man I am now in. What I do know is that my old mission statement is no longer a valid statement of what I want or who I perceive myself to be.

I understand myself and the world better now. That is euphemistically called wisdom, not that it makes my understanding my situation significantly clearer. However, whatever I do not understand, I do know that my first order of business will be to rewrite my mission statement. After I have done that, I will at least know what I am trying to accomplish in the end game of my life.