Do You Wander With Purpose?

If I told you I was listening to Madonna sing Vogue and was lost in thought about some places I have been and some people I know/have known would it make you think.

Would you look at my Tall Women Are Sexy post and wonder where the hell that came from or be surprised that my mind flipped from the women to fraternity life to work and then to an audio post where I asked the universe to give me straight answers.

If I am not mistaken it is a post where I said I wander with purpose.

Four years later I am just beginning to really understand and absorb what that means.

No One Reads Your Blog

A while back I was told that my blog doesn’t generate enough engagement to be a part of some sponsored post program.

I could have argued and debated the point, could have put on my marketer hat and asked them to discuss metrics in the sort of depth that I don’t often touch upon here anymore.

Or I could have asked them to read a post like The Problem With Blogging Conference Speakers and demonstrated I know how to stimulate discussion and generate comments.

But to what end and what purpose?

It would serve my ego and make me feel better to prove them wrong and to show multiple other posts that are chock full of comments, and not just the great post kind.

Got plenty of those, but got lots of comments that educate, advance and stimulate conversation. Those are significant, useful and meaningful.

But I wander with purpose and I am off the beaten path now following a song only my heart can hear being sung.

I love finding the 100-year-old penny and taking time to observe, learn and think about it.

I am interested in making sure it is a life worth living and lately that has meant traveling a different path.

That is because what I saw when the clouds lifted convinced me I had run down a dream and figure out if it was fact or fiction.

The More You Know The Less You Understand

Sometimes I wonder if we spend so much time trying to figure out the world around us we unintentionally make the world more confusing than it really is.

Maybe that is more of a hope than a guess, maybe it is tied into misunderstood, I don’t know.

I spend far less time now wondering and worrying about what others think than ever before. It is kind of funny to say that because even though I tried not to let it influence me, it still happened.

But now, not so much.

Now I just do my thing and figure you’ll decide to accept or not accept me. Maybe you’ll love me, maybe you’ll hate me or maybe you’ll be indifferent.

I just don’t have time for it.

But it still comes up, still creeps out of the hidey-holes of the dark because my children haven’t developed the same thick skin I have.

They are still learning and growing and in places where it is far more important to fit in and be a part of things than me.

So I pay attention and do what I can to help them navigate some of these social matters as best I can.

****

Got Bruce Springsteen singing Happy and I am smiling because I can relate to the song and because as a writer I am impressed with how deftly he uses words and music to paint a picture.

Smiling because it reminds me that it doesn’t take much to build a relationship between people, both in print and in real life.

And it makes me wonder about us, it makes me wonder how honest we are about who we are and what we want.

Makes me wonder if the masks we wear for others ever come off long enough for us to see what lies beneath the surface or if that is too frightening for us to see.

Reminds me of someone who asked me if I am always this intense and how it surprised me because until that moment I had never thought of describing myself that way.

But it fit well enough for me to say ok, maybe I am.

And I figured the better I got to know and understand me, well the easier it would be for me to help my children understand who they are.

At least that is the theory, haven’t determined if there is hope or true correlation between fact and reality there.

That is part of the joy of parenting, pretending that you know how to deal with everything and anything that you encounter.

Eventually the kids start to realize that your expertise and authority are limited but if they have an ounce of common sense they know we still know more than they do.

All you can do is wander with purpose and try to find the joy in the journey because sometimes that really is…enough.

• Saved: Children