Chapter 21

Exactly what you want; the hardest thing ever to pin down, and the most important. There are so many competing pieces to your life, none of the most important will get the priority that they deserve if you fail to define exactly what you want. Not mostly what you want, and generally what you want, but exactly what you want. Give it body and definition and handles and measurements and substance. Give it life.

This is the most difficult kind of work, knowing exactly what you want. This seemed much simpler back when I was in college and the world was small and apparent options limited. I remember thinking a house on the hill above my parents, with the girl I was planning to marry at that time, would have been all anyone could have ever dreamed or hoped for, so big was this dream at that moment, that it consumed me and I thought I would pop from the pressure and size of it. Exactly what I wanted!

But I did not marry that girl, and I did not build that house on top of the hill. I married a different gal, and thank God that I did! However life with her has far larger involvements and moves around the world, and living in multiple countries, learning multiple languages, traveling the world, biking and skiing in exotic locations, taking risks I could not have even considered when I was in college, doing things and trying things and getting to work with amazing people these too would have been far beyond my imagination when 22 years old. The point is this, exactly what you want is a moving target, not a fast moving target, but at least a decade at a time different moving target.

You got work to do.