Keeping the flame alive

A few weeks ago, in my Leading Strategic Change class, the professor encouraged the class to think about what our individual strategy was to keep our flame alive. At the time I wrote it down as a “personal question” and over the following weeks, I found myself coming back to that question repeatedly.

Recruiting has been the cause for a lot of sleepless nights. And as I struggle to maintain my balance through the curve balls coming at me, I wonder what measures I’ve put in place to keep myself driven. I have been guilty of being too consumed by this boot camp I signed up for and although they warned us right at the beginning of school to hold on to our ties with the outside world, I know that I have allowed those ties to grow feeble. Sometimes I think it’s something we all have to learn – to see the big big picture, to realize that each of our many lives – work, social, personal, religion - is a microcosm and it’s temporary and so it doesn’t pay to fall too much in love with any one, without being conscious of the sum total.

As I struggle to define and make sense of everything present and before me, I search within for that part I can come home to when I want to retreat. And I ask myself where my flame is. In some sense I think a lot of us have begun to “check out” already and I am alarmed at the frequency with which I am thinking of “the future” - filled with uncertainty yet free to be what I want it to be, just waiting for me to give it shape. And I hope that when I find my flame, the way forward will be clear.