One month countdown until I return home

Another month down and only one more left to go. Life is precious because we have a limited amount of time on this planet. If we didn't die and know that all of us will eventually meet our end, nothing would really mean anything because we'd literally had forever. In a similar vein, this mini retirement is precious because I know that it has to come to an end at some point...at least the current version that I'm living. While going home is the next big transition, it's another in-between space, a rest stop on the way to yet another destination. Where am I headed next? I'm still not really sure. I thought that by now, I would have a clear picture of where I want to go, but that is still not the case.

One exciting development is that I recently re-discovered a new, but old, interest. It was kind of exciting to feel excited about something. It has reminded me that yes, I still do have a fire inside of me when it comes to "work" related things. I'm trying to pinpoint how this idea came about, but it kind of popped up into my head one day while I was traveling. This is one of the amazing things about travel: we give ourselves the space and the time to make new connections. When we're in new and unfamiliar places, our brains have an opportunity to stretch itself in new ways that can lead to inspiration. In fact, this is a topic I've always been kind of interested in and have worked on adjacently in the past, but I never really thought about it because it always seemed irrelevant to me. When I started thinking about the values and issues that matter to me, this idea came up organically in response. I am looking into some potential roles that might be relevant, but more broadly, this concept, is going on my list of big ideas that I want to come back to--even if it's not directly related to a career in the near-term future.

Anyways, I'm still waiting on some updates that I was waiting on and anticipating getting answers to earlier this month. Seems like other people have been delayed and of course Mercury retrograde seems to have been in full swing these past few weeks. For example, the day I was supposed to take my real estate licensure exam, the exam page wouldn't load during the window that I had to take the exam, even though it was working an hour or so before when I was testing the page. I kept getting an internal server error---technological mishaps are a signature sign of Mercury retrograde. I'm hoping that some of the other communication delays are a symptom of this chaotic time, as it takes a week or so for things to get back to normal.

There's this interesting Buddhist story that highlights that there is objectively no good or bad things that happen to us. For example, in the latter half of this story, the man's son breaks his leg and all the village people were saying how sad and unlucky this was, but the man shrugged and didn't judge the situation. The next day, the government announced they were drafting all the young men in the village, but only the man's son couldn't go since he had a broken leg. Again, the village people said how lucky the man was, and again, the man just shrugged. We really don't know whether or not what we're going through is going to end up being "good" or "bad," and especially not in the moment it's taking place. Oftentimes outcomes and the value of happenings only reveal themselves with time.

While I can't say the past month of waiting and uncertainty has been good or pleasant by any means, it has forced me to be patient in a way that I honestly can't say that I've had to experience before. I usually force outcomes relatively quickly because I can't stand the anxiety of an unknown future. I'm learning to be a slower, less reactive, more open version of myself. While it feels like hard work, almost like I'm training for some kind of marathon of life, weirdly this discomfort feels like it's worth it.