Fine Lines and Pebbles

   There is a fine line between on vacation, in retirement and working for oneself.  If you are retired, how do you know when you are vacation?  When does the “weekend” start?  When you work for yourself and take time for personal tasks, do you need to record “comp” time?  This is very confusing to a recently retired househusband and fledgling writer.

   Fifty years ago I listed my ambition in my high school yearbook as “To never have to work.”  My father took great exception with that statement.  He focused on the word “never” and chided me for professing a rather dilatant approach to life.  To the contrary my emphasis was on “have to.”  That was a fine line between never have to work and never have to work.  Growing up as the son of lifelong working parents, I could not imagine ever not working.  The thought of retirement was both foreign and frightening.  Work defined life as I knew it then; it still does.

  I learned early on that if I was to not have to work, I better want to work; and to do so I would need work I liked.  Now, don’t get me wrong. As a career teacher there were certainly days I fretted about if not rued the thought of the challenges before me.  At the same time I knew them as challenges, not problems.  I value highly the years I spent with kids and the opportunities I had to influence their lives.  The line between challenge and problem can be fine indeed, but I wanted those challenges.  I wanted to go to work. 

   The idea of opportunity may be what delineates challenges from problems.  I had an opportunity to make a difference in children’s lives.  Their problems became my challenges.  The opportunity to make a difference is what I consider noble about work.  Obviously, we work to support and sustain our lives, but beyond that what keeps us working? 

   I read recently that my job in life is not to “change the world” but to “help make it a better place.”  That is another fine line, and it may be simply a matter of attitude.   For years after I burned out from the savior of the world work scene, I dropped out, hid out and resisted helping anyone or anything beyond my little corner of the planet.  I re-emerged only to find a quiet place to ply my trade focusing on the here and now of my role as one teacher in one school in a small, backwater district in the middle of Phoenix.  Yet, discontentment lingered in my ego; I longed for wanting one more opportunity to throw a pebble into the pond and see how many ripples I could make.  

   “How many ripples I could make,” that was the rub.  My focus was on myself, not on how God could use me to make a difference.  The difference between being the one to toss the pebble and being the pebble is a fine line to discern.  It is a matter of attitude and a matter of purpose.

   In my chosen endeavor I am challenged by writing for profit and writing to make a difference.  I am challenged by my self-proclaimed role as social commenter.  I am challenged by sustaining a voice that offers insight from my half-century of adult experience and one that proclaims a holier-than-thou attitude.  I am challenged by writer’s block stemming from questions of “Who am I to be doing this, writing this, asking these questions, and challenging others.”  I am challenged by the fine line between being the one to toss the pebble and being the pebble. 

   Changing the world is an onerous responsibility, and it is not my place.  Helping make the world a better place seems do-able.  The very idea of “helping” means I don’t have to do this alone.  Daily as we all do, I encounter opportunities to help make the world better for someone.  I offer my thoughts only in that vein.

  I have been away from this milieu all too long; I have fretted and fumed about my station in life and the direction I should take.  My focus was on the one tossing not the pebble.  The ripples will occur; the only question regards my role in making them.  To be the one to toss the pebble is to maintain the illusion of control.  To be the pebble is to admit I am to be tossed about.  I draw the line, however fine, only by my attitude and my faith in the One doing the tossing.

   I am back.

   I had to be led back, but here I am.

   Thanks for being here with me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. 

If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much;

apart from me you can do nothing.”  

~ John 15:5 (NIV)