...on sharing the wonderful!

My dearest readers,

not too long after the first of (hopefully) many UW reunions (though I am sure there will be plenty), and similar to the previous post on leadership, I caught myself revisiting the past another time. This time, however, it was less about the past but more about the here and now, where the past was present, underneath, but it was there, and it became a manifest of the present I found myself in. It felt almost as though the one can’t exist without the other—and truly both can’t. They coexist; and therefore I want to dedicate this discourse to coexisting, i.e. sharing, where one is to find the ideational value of and in our lives.

This reunion weekend has shown me bluntly, how the past (A) and the present (B) coexist; but further it has shown me, how the A and B laid open a wide room in between. Bearing in mind my UW experience I came to visualize that what once started as a great undertaking and challenge and a significant endeavor and mission I had to take on in my life was no longer something I needed to have in sight. As stated at an earlier point: I did my time and it is done; it had been taken care of. And sitting there with my fellow friends and former classmates I came to realize that the lone wolf people labeled me and the lone wolf I once were no longer existed as such. Something had happened when crossing over from A to B, and that something was sharing, moreover a shared experience we were all part of. Now that I got to spend time with others who once shared the same dream there was no longer something we all had to dream of and work for, because now that we can talk about the past and reminisce about great times, in fact now that we can have a reunion, all the great times we relived and talked about were times that by now are in the books: they are history. And they were great times we shared. There was no longer an individual; there was only a collective, a collective that was part of an experience larger than any of us.

Where we were once striving and following our dreams by ourselves there are now others who at some point were doing the same. What was formerly restricted to ourselves had suddenly evolved, evolved into a collective experience that can and eventually will weld the many together to a figurative band of brothers and sisters who pull(ed) on the same string. Not just “e pluribus unum” but “ut omnes unum sint” as well, for all we shared something and based on that shared experience, the past, we became a collective in the present. And isn’t that what one can call the ideational value of and in our lives? Isn’t this union based on a shared experience something sublime, sacred, and priceless?

To exemplify and solidify just keep asking yourself: what is the biggest bullion, if the ideational opulence we hold in our hearts (not just for ourselves but for others) out-weights and out-values it in a heartbeat? What is an infinite savings account, when yet we miss to save some many pages in the diary of our hearts (of life that is) for the many experiences we can write together with our loved ones, the ones that are part of an experience with us that is larger than life? While so many in our age seek economic wealth, is it not the riches of the past, the shared experiences we carry along with us that make this life worth living? Are not those riches what truly matters, for it eventually made and/or makes us become who we are?

Once you answered all those questions go ahead and reflect, look back to your past, relive and revisit it. Look back to the hard work that once laid the foundation for you to eventually live to see today, but from a different angle, just as the past once laid the foundation for any of us to finally have a reunion and see (life in) the present from a different angle. And have the space between A and B demonstrate, how the steady toil one is willing to put in is eventually going to be rewarded—and as that had been the case for me it will be the same for you: you get what you (are willing to) give. We all gave, and we all got, received, not just I, but the collective, we! If thou didn’t give in the past, what will thou receive in the present?...but bear in mind that tomorrow the present (i.e. today) will have become past, in that sense it is not too late to affect and shape your future. And despite my concluding #foreverforward let us open our eyes to the value and treasure that lies in the past, a past and in the end a shared experience that came out of it, one that we can relive and revisit day in day out, over and over again, for it is written in our history. It's in our books. And no one will ever take that away from us! Like finishing it is not temporary, but lasts forever.

The Victorian artist John Ruskin once said that “[t]he highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” And once we let the past define ourselves and determine our present, then there will indeed be something to share, something wonderful that turns even the last lone wolf into just another part of a collective bond. And in this sharing and shared experience we eventually come to see what it means to actually “live” life! And in that sense I just want to let you know about life: I live mine…how about you?!?

#sharethewonderful …and here it is: #foreverforward