Five Four-Drawer Filing Cabinets

“Kids, be free.  Be who you are, be whatever you want to be.  Just don’t hurt anybody.”
--From memory, lyrics to a song from the rock opera Hair, the score to which was one of my first record albums

“Like sand in the something of an hourglass, so go the days of our lives.”
--From memory, tagline to soap opera “Days of Our Lives” I watched with my mother and sister when I was a child

As my one-year quest to answer all of life’s questions before I turn 50 becomes sand in the something of an hourglass, I am having some insights.

I have not enjoyed my life as I could have.

Much, much of it was spent straining to intuit what others wanted and needed in order to rescue them from their sorrows or disappointments, or to launch them into new heights of growth.

I have five, four-drawer filing cabinets full of meticulously researched, thoughtfully expressed, carefully crafted, artfully presented handouts, proposals, letters, articles, short stories, poems, and plans representing effort after effort to lift and inspire.

One filing cabinet for each decade.

I found some of my efforts deeply moving and others have said that I helped them along the way.  Good.

But I find I have not been so much who I am, but more who I perceived others needed and wanted me to be.

At 50, I contemplate a life spent largely other-focused and chronically self-depleted.

I wonder, if like 40 years of television, 50 years of striving might be enough.

Comments

[Robert Giles]

As others have suggested, perhaps it's the race, not the win that is important?

But who else could have done the wonderful things you have done and might still be doing?

"What's it all about, Alphie?" from another song of your youth. Questions remain.