Hello Again

It’s been a while since I last posted – April of last year to be exact. Things got a little difficult for me and my family as my severance from the job I had been laid off from back in December of 2008 ran out. Unemployment started in April, but in the state of Maine the maximum weekly payout did not come close to paying the bills. My wife Nicole, after many years of being an at-home mom, luckily found a part time job managing a small retail store. Still, we were not paying the bills.
In June, I finally was offered a job and would be working for L.L.Bean (I’m assuming you know who this is). Great company, but entry level job. I went from being a senior director for a midsized company to being a front line supervisor for a large company. But we could now pay the bills! Then a month ago, Nicole lost her job. C’est la vie!

“When life offers you lemons, make lemonade.” I know that is cliché now but it is so relevant to my life right now. In many ways, my family has become much closer as a result of having less. Less dinners out, less downhill skiing, fewer TV channels, less extravagant vacations, fewer trips to the mall, less digital entertainment. Less. Another cliché, “sometimes less is more”. We now have more time to play games such as Pictionary and Rummy 500. We have more appreciation for our strength as a family to get through the tough times, we better recognize our relative wealth still compared to the majority of people in the world. We talk to each other more, and listen more. More.

I have also found more room in my life now to share the lessons I’ve learned and the knowledge I’ve gained in my 45 years of living, and 45 years of searching for answers. Since I graduated from college, I’ve been asking myself “What am I here to do on this Earth?”, “Who am I really?”, “Why is the world such a violent place?”, “Why is there so much sadness and suffering?”, “How do I know I am the best parent I can be?” By no means however am I suggesting I now hold the answers to life’s questions. In fact, I am still in full search mode but I am at the point where I at least know what I don’t know… you know what I mean?

So I am hoping that this blog can serve as an exchange – an experience-based idea exchange of sorts. I’m not talking about looking for ideas on how to solve world hunger, rather I am looking for ideas to help us all live with more peace, love and joy – one individual, and one relationship at a time.

In the mean time, think about this: “The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.”  -  Frederick Buechner