The Sanford Berenberg Experience: Message of the Day - Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Good Morning,

While I was going for a walk around the beautiful lands and hiking trails of Snug Hollow (www.snughollow.com) I was thinking about various things. It is amazing how crystal clear you can get when you get back to nature. Just looking at the birds, the trees the sky and hearing the wind gently tease the trees with the soft sound of the grass and leaves under your feet as you walk brought be face to face with some challenging thoughts.

For the last few months I have struggled to cobble together enough time to get my second book laid out and prepared. I have even lined up a cabal of people to peer the book when I get it into draft form. The time I was looking to do the work has been elusive. Many day to day demands keep taking precedence. And then there is that sleep thing when cohesive thought is all but impossible. I have also been struggling to balance the involvement in my roles in the several organizations which I sit on the board or chair. And then there is the perpetual drive to start something new myself. Coupled with all of this is the daily challenge to put in my reading and keep up my pace of yesteryears.

In my walk that Saturday afternoon at Snug Hollow, I felt a calm come over me as I walked down the last hill to the cozy cottage that Karen and I were staying at.

After that calm I started hearing the U2 song ‘Still haven’t found what I’m looking for’ and I started singing it to myself as I approached the cabin. Then it hit me.

I have been driving for endgame positions in my life, to be done with something, to start something new, to commit myself to the next project and all the while, I am still learning and growing, a work in progress.

My rush to accomplish had overshadowed my need to continue growing and evolving.

I know that I will never arrive, we never do, the moment we stop learning and growing, we start dying.

What I learned about myself was that I am still not the person I am meant to be in the different endeavors that I am involved in. That is, I am not ready to start that new project yet. I need to get a few more things under my belt first. It is important not to rush into obligations.

When we are on our journeys in life, we can often forget that the learning is found in the travelling and not the arriving. When we rush to arrive, we can miss what was along the way.

It has been a challenge for me to not rush to my growth as I often feel that I need to make up for a lost 10 years when I was (in my mind today) goofing off (I expound on that in the introduction of my book).

The truth is that those 10 years were not a waste, they were a lesson.

A lesson that I have not taken the time to learn from.

In my walk in the woods and fields, by the pond and the other pleasures of nature, I realized that I am still growing into that person I will be tomorrow. And while that does not give me the clearance I am looking for to dive headlong into the next project, yet, it helps me get perspective on the person I am and what I have learned over the years, and what I hope to learn going forward.

The mad dash to arrive is overrated and at the same time, insidious in how it traps us into thinking we need to speed up our lives to become the person we hope to be.

So long as we continue to learn and grow daily, will become that person, and then continue on the path and become more of who we can be potentially. This will continue until our dying day, whether that is a physical death or one from giving up on all learning.

And I am okay with that.

I hope you, in your journeys, are too.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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