Tuesday, October 13, 2009

"Really? Really?"

I am finding that have two entirely different people living inside my mind: one, an adventurous "Let's go out and live! Take a risk! Do something Exciting" person (Let's call him Pennsylvania TB, shall we?) and a "No no, I'm a quiet life person. Don't make waves. Be diligent, do what your given." (Let's call him The Clerk).

A small yet typical interaction. Yesterday afternoon at work, I was going through a testing procedure that involved Pearson's product moment correlation-coefficient, checking the spreadsheet to make sure that the formula was there. Suddenly, Pennsylvania TB showed up in room screaming "What you are doing? Are puzzling over a formula to a document that no-one will ever look at? Really? Really?"

To which The Clerk quietly replied "It's our job. We need to do it. Be quiet and let me do this."

Frustrating to say the least, especially when I'm driving home and all I can hear in my head is "Really? Really?" and "We need to do it. Be quiet and let me do this."

But so often this seems to be the ebb and flow of my life between this seeming call to excitement and adventure and fulfillment (with no idea how to get there or what it means) versus the doing the work to support my family and life on things that, in my heart of heart, I know simply don't matter - the work that a man could spend his whole life doing and wake up at the end of it to realize that he was capable of more.

How do I integrate these two, the wild eyed adventurer with his zest and risk taking and the clerk with his diligence to do the right thing, even if it's boring?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are welcome (and necessary, for good conversation). If you could take the time to be kind and not practice profanity, it would be appreciated. Thanks for posting!