Finding Meaning

Our Beloved Community

I no longer ask, “What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to hang on to?” Instead I ask, “What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to give myself to?” [1]

Over the course of my career, I was advised to keep track of accomplishments - my own and those of any teams that I led. What gave our work meaning, however, was not the accomplishments per se, but the giving of ourselves to each other and to those we served in the process of reaching those accomplishments.

As I watched a beekeeper at work, it occurred to me that the verb “keep” holds in tension two opposite meanings. It can mean to hold onto something (such as the pride that stems from an accomplishment), but it also can mean to give ourselves over to something (such as a commitment to keep watch over a collection of bee hives), and it is in the latter sense - in the giving over of ourselves - that we find meaning.

Resources

[1] Palmer, Parker J.. On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, & Getting Old (p. 39). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.