The patiently anxious blog

I'm at a crossroads in my life. It's a fork in the road between wanting to soar to new heights and contribute to the world on levels greater than I have ever known before, and wanting to wear nothing but NFL t-shirts and flannel pants and sit on the couch all day. Perhaps it's just a holiday hangover talking and the desire to maintain the continuous rotation of flannel pants will fade as we get further into January. The weather is beautiful, but even as I write this I'm sitting on the couch in a gray Cowboys t-shirt with a schnauzer curled up in my blue flannel-coated lap. It's a cozy place to be and I think I could stay here forever if only this nagging, insatiable desire to do more with my life would just go the way of most New Year's resolutions and fizzle out. As much as I would like to be sometimes, I just don't think I'm cut out to be a slacker. I tried it in college for awhile and gained twenty pounds. I guess having drive and passion is preferable. It's much easier on my Levis and baby tees, that's for sure.

I don't make New Year's resolutions. It works best for me to muster up tiny bits of resolve all year long in an effort to become better each day than I was the day before, than it does to set my sights on one grandiose thing that I want to accomplish. There are days when I'm way worse than I was the day before and I think my own tiny bits of resolve are a bunch of hooey, but most of the time this philosophy puts me on a steady path toward self-improvement and I'll commit to it again this year. I just wish I knew what that meant for me professionally. What's next I wonder.

Is it normal to feel like you aren't contributing everything you should be contributing to the world? Angela and I talk about that sometimes. We both have jobs, we both volunteer at church, and I have a website that I hope offers encouragement to the people who run across it, but neither of us feels like we're living up to our full potential. (My flannel pants and slippers just started putting off a new intermittent, pulsating glow as if to say, "Maybe you should start with clothes you would wear in public silly." Duely noted.) All of this is probably part of the growth process. Opportunities to live up to our full potential and to give to the world beyond our current capabilities will continue to arise as we become ready. In that case this itch to do more must signal that I'm on the edge of some cool new opportunity and I will just have to be patiently anxious (is there such a thing?) and wait to discover what that is.

I think I'll give myself until the end of the week to launch out of flannel pants mode. Besides, the Rose Bowl is on tomorrow night and cotton helps me cheer with more conviction. Hook em Horns! I can't wait.