Monday Morning

"We're all here to do what we're all here to do."

On Monday of just this week I sat around a table of middle management and up...and felt disgust. Utter disgust. I had a headache by the time it was all over. There we sat, discussing the impact of market exposure and errors on customer accounts. Managers vying to impress the big boss, whose name ironically sounds like something from a mafia movie. "This isn't me," I thought to myself. I know what I'm capable of, and it's something way beyond which error type causes the largest impact to the firm. What difference did it make? How am I helping people? How does this help me? Is this going to make me happy? My frustration grew, and for the first time in a long time - maybe in my life - I started to question where I fit. And I knew almost before I asked that it wasn't at that table.

You hear a lot of people talk about code. Something to stand for or believe in. To have a purpose. To make a difference. Thinking about the past 27 years of my life is a frustrating experience. I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, disappointed with every second of my life. Just like everyone, there are some moments I wish I could forget and some I wish I could live forever. What I'm saying is, leading up to today, right now, I don't believe I've done what I am here to do. To make matters worse, I don't even know what that is. But I have made enough mistakes and wrong turns to know what it's not. I can't say that people don't walk around wondering what they're here for - hell, I didn't even start thinking about it until recently. But I'm sure there are individuals who live their life day-to-day, relishing the good and suffering the bad, but not putting it together to form something bigger. Not learning a lesson, and not teaching anyone else. Not playing the role of the cog in the machine. It's a strange thing to feel clear and confused at the same time. Motivated yet hampered. Living on both ends of the continuum. Constantly feeling a lump in my throat, but not knowing if tears of joy or pain will fall...or if, indeed, they'll fall at all. Even right now I wish I could write forever, to best articulate what I'm feeling. But the solace I find in this new found appreciation for life is the new found appreciation for life itself. Call it a moment of clarity...call it a fire under my ass...I honestly don't know what to call it, but I'm glad I have it, and hope I don't lose it. Does that make me better than the next person? Of course not...I'd never think that of myself.

I just wish the same for everyone.