If you asked me today to use one word to describe myself professionally, I would say conscientious.

That makes me different from a great deal of professionals, who are not conscientious, but rather, just do their job. Because I am conscientious, I tend to take my work very seriously. Work is a reflection of me and like most things that I approach, I want that reflection to be perfect. That's something that I am trying to get past, as I mature and actualize the concept that no one is perfect. Not even me. Especially me.

In the midst of this craziness I am handling and the long flights across America, and the critical meetings in each location, I stopped one night to step outside on a mild summer night in Northern California and reflect. I sat down and thought about all that is going on with my work, and the rest of the craziness going on in my personal life. As I silently smoked a cigarette, sitting on a bench in a secluded garden cloaked in the dark of the night, I stopped. I just stopped. Stopped thinking about how I should handle something, stopped thinking about strategic approaches, stopped thinking about problems each of my friends are coping with, stopped thinking about what a year I've had, stopped thinking about what a great family and friends I have, stopped thinking about me. I just stopped.

And suddenly, the most peaceful feeling settled into my body. There was nothing more to that moment, than me inhaling my cigarette and exhaling into the blue-black night sky. It was...enlightening.

It no longer mattered where I was or what I needed to do. I simply, was.

What I found, is that nothing in my life right now really matters much to me, other than finding peace. The things that I have been focusing on, are grievously unimportant. This is not upsetting news, it's just a prick in the ass of my id that prods me to establish something in my life of importance to me.

There is more to me than I've written in this journal or with work or my friends; there is my identity. Who I am.

That is the journey that is tiring.

And aren't we all tired?

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