I made it back to my parents place in Arkansas early yesterday, and I’ve been catching up on sleep since. I have a few meetings tomorrow, just as I love to do on Monday of all days. I’m glad to be back. It was quite a run out west, but now I have to focus on work projects, which really seem to be piling up at the moment.

In addition to the work I have to do, a feeling of what to do next is coming over me. Just like the nation is really wondering what the hell is happening next, I’m wondering where my next steps will take me. My parents and I got into a heated discussion over politics this evening, and afterwards it was normal conversation as usual about what’s going on with family. I plan on acquiring some more property in Florida within the next year, but Florida is not where I plan on staying. On one hand, I believe on keeping plans somewhat open ended, but on the other, the lack of concrete planning is starting to unnerve me.

The reason I started out on what I called a vision quest years ago, when I wrote my blog, Finding My Way, was to try and find the answer to what my purpose is in this life. Apparently there are at least a couple of different schools of thought regarding this topic. Theory number one, it’s believed that you will find your purpose when you look for it. Theory number two, we have to create our purpose in life, which flies in the face of theory number one, or complements it, which depends on whether you’re a glass half empty or half full type.

Somewhere along the line in this grand journey of life, I started to really ponder the question of what my purpose is while I’m here. The fact that I’ve spent a good portion of my life working a job that seemed to have no purpose whatsoever other than earning a measly paycheck and making a manager and/or supervisor feel important probably had a lot to this with this way of thinking. I would constantly wonder, “Is this what I’m really here for, to absolutely hate my life so some idiots with no life can get a warm fuzzy by telling me what to do?”

So whenever there’s been a break in my pattern, which has usually been some sort of job change, I’ve set out to see what I could be doing differently. In the process, I’ll meet new people, go new places, have great new experiences. Then, at some point, it all comes right back around to square one. That’s how I’m feeling right now, ever though I do have plans for the near future.

This is all making me ask the question, should I just accept my life as it is and enjoy what I’ve done and experienced? Or, do I need to ramp up and do better so those times in my life aren’t just flashes in the pan? At least for now, I’ll take a past and future approach. Those past experiences are just that, in the past. For the future, if I want anything to be different, it is time to up my game. I’m just wondering if I’ll read this in a year, how different my life will be. So far it’s been a recurring pattern. As I remember a friend saying many years ago, you have to find the pattern, and break the pattern.