Monday Monday

Yesterday was just one of those days - one of those "There's a pall hanging over the building and I can't quite seem to shake it" days. Part of it could have been the weather, of course - a dark blustery day that made it seem like 0600 until noon. Part of it could have simply been the fact that once again, the weekend seemed far too short (although in fairness, at least weekends feel like weekends now and give me a separation from work).

I think a great deal of it was due to yet another announced merger in my industry and the resulting expected layoffs - with this second one in approximately two weeks, 27,000 + layoffs are expected. I'm not really sure what attracts me to such news - a morbid interest, or simply remembering the pain each and ever time I read of a layoff - but that, combined with a general mood of futility, made for a long - and not productive -Monday.

The other thing I found nagging at my mind is significance. Watching the tide of paperwork rise and then recede from my desk, I was reminded again of the significance of doing something that matters. These papers that I agonize over, cajole for signatures and corrections, and carefully preserve from harm will eventually get thrown into a box, placed off site, and eventually destroyed. The materials that they represent will be consumed, perhaps in testing for the discovery of a major cure, but just as likely for experimentation which will again be forgotten.

I'm finding that as I go, life is going faster and faster not slower, and my need (can we say need?) for performing something of significance becomes deeper, if for no other reason the realization that most of this life consists of dust blowing in the wind, and I am so often too dense to grasp the spiritual realities around me. It makes for an interesting paradox: trapped in a whirlwind of the transient which obscures the permanent.

In such moments, how does one focus?