Five years away, and five years back. Full circle. June 19th.
I didn’t get round to writing reflections for Years 3 and 4—life was just too much to even sit down and write about. For Year 5 though, I’ve been counting down to this day for the past week or so, reminding myself not to miss it, to make time to think, to examine, to articulate. It just seemed like an appropriate, poetic juncture to do a little personal stock-taking.
Have these past five years erased the previous five?
Have I progressed or regressed?
Am I doing more for my community/industry/society, or less?
I have to admit that these questions are less dear to my heart than they used to be. Some of the sharpness of my idealism has simply been sanded away by the constant grind of mundane realities. I can’t wake up every morning excited about what I have to do. I can’t take up everything worthwhile that comes to my attention. I can’t fill every waking minute with productive actions and happy thoughts. I can’t fight every battle. I can’t win over every person. These are all unrealistic; they are essentially expectations for the kind of perfect, textbook conditions that just aren’t possible in our broken world.
Sometimes, we just have to deal. Somedays—or even some months, years—we’ve just got to play tennis with our problems, keep swinging and hitting back until they’re out of our courts. No time to over-think it, no excess energy to spend on being upset. Working hard is always going to involve some level of discomfort, no?
So these five years did not turn out the way I expected. That’s okay! The stretching has made me more pragmatic, more resilient, and more deeply connected with my support network here, family, church and friends. This is part and parcel of being equipped to do more. This is progress.