Sweat shop...

Fulfillment. To me there is no word quite like it. Two different forms of the same word, meaning to sate, or satisfy, the word itself implies a reasonable assurance that fulfillment is possible, even likely. In like manner, I cannot seem to rid myself of the quest for fulfillment, the state of being, not the word. Oddly enough and unlike most of my contemporaries, this is not something that started in my forties as some part of a mid-life crisis. I have always had a restlessness in my heart, which has led to people and places near and far, but not to, well, you get the idea.

So today, as I sweltered in the 100 plus degrees of the Central Valley of California, I wondered aloud and alone, why bother. For all my journeys, quests and missions fulfillment had proven allusory at best. The risks I have taken to get there have been large, personally, finanacially, and otherwise, but the rewards, such as they are, have been found less than, well, fulfilling. Oh, sure, sometimes you take a risk and meet a person who rocks your world for a lifetime, perhaps, or you become wealthy beyond belief. But in the end, at least for me, and at least in the area of doing things (work, hobbies, travel, etc.), I have found they all leave me thirsting for more.

Yet soldier on I do in part, I suspect because once the risk is undertaken there is no option but to go forward. As a popular song says, "no one has found the rewind button," so you pay for the opportunity in so, so many ways. And maybe that is the lesson learned as we go through life. Following your dreams will allow for no regrets in the end, there is no other way to look at it, but make no mistake, bills must be paid for the carrots we follow.

Now don't misunderstand me, this is not a boo-hoo session, just a reflection on why I seem to be continually in the hunt. What am I looking for, really, when I create a new business opportunity? Love, God, attention, heaven? Perhaps grace, peace, a laugh, joy, security? All those answers are both familiar and a little cold, too, except God and love. Love of the Earthly kind has that warm glow surrounding it, but it too, has proven illusory. So perhaps those are the two things that we ultimately look toward to fulfill our lives. To say that we find complete satisfaction in God is to deny our physical realities, as much as finding it in the love of another denies realities spiritual. And maybe that is the answer. What? You don't understand?

Perhaps fulfillment is not in any ONE thing, but in the sum of the whole. People, places, interesting work, love of all loves, faith, hope, a Savior, God the Father. I bet it all leads to fullfillment in the end, if we keep seeking, peeling the onion as we go, finding what is true, noble, real.

So I will continue to seek it, this crazy thing called fulfillment, but with an eye to the end, more than what it holds for me today. That when my final breath is drawn I will recall, remember, be filled.