Dear Family and Friends,
In case you don’t know, my Father-in-Law fell down a flight of stairs earlier this week. He was going to the dentist office and lost his balance. He woke up to a young man cradling his head and telling him not to move. After time at the hospital in Athens, he was transported to Columbus, Ohio where they are much better able to deal with the trauma.
As I am sitting here with him in the room, I am seeing a person whom I love very deeply, sleeping soundly after two days of extreme pain. Here in the silence of the room, with only the noises of the monitors and his breathing I have time to think without distractions.
This man is a role model of a person who has passion for his job. Although he is a retired university president, he continues to teach and work with students because he has passion for education. How many of us strive for our own passions. Too many of us have jobs where the money is good, but the passion either is not there, or the passion we once had faded many months, years, or even decades ago.
As our children were growing up, Ann and I continued to tell them to find their passion and seek out a job that fulfills it. We guided them to find a job that fulfills their passion, even if it starts off low-paying. Passion will carry them further in their careers than others without it and, perhaps, one day will result in salary more than meeting their needs.
You remember the old saying “Do as I say, not as I do”? Well, I have to confess that I have not lived up to guidance we gave our children.
Passion for me was there when I worked on aircraft in the USAF. Since my brother was a pilot, I took on every aircraft job as if he was the one that was going to fly the aircraft after I finished. Many times, my passion for that job resulted in finding things that would not have been found if I had not been as thorough. I transitioned to a technical writer/editor job, but even though I was thorough and dedicated, the passion for my job started to wane. One reason was I couldn’t see the end result of my work.
Fast forward through other jobs and years and I found myself with the opportunity to go to Iraq. My wife and I discussed it and agreed it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With the family’s blessings, I left from Dulles and headed for 5 months away from my loved ones at home.
To say the time away was difficult is an understatement. Anniversaries, birthdays, graduations, household emergencies, weather difficulties, and of course household/outdoor chores were missed. One time I wrote about (see “Smells of Christmas”) was my first Christmas away from home spent in Baghdad, Iraq. There were so many other events that still cause my eyes to well-up, but one thing that I continued to remember was that I chose to go to Iraq.
Despite the difficulties, I was again working in a job in which I had passion. I had day-to-day experiences with Iraqis, both Muslim and Christians, and I discovered that the people of Iraq are just like us. Although we may differ in religious beliefs and culture, the bottom line is they wanted peace and security for their families and for themselves. I became close to these people, as did the other US staff and international consultants, and we all shared a common factor: We had passion for what we were doing.
I have been working from home now for over a year, closing down the Iraq project. The memories of my time there are sometimes vivid, but other times are clouded by the day-to-day experiences that life in our culture brings us.
Now, as I sit in a room with a man struggling with his pain and health, who lived his whole life with passion, I am ashamed. If there is one thing I intend to do after all of this is over and he is again teaching and living each day with passion, I am going to take the hand of my wife and ask her to help she and I find our passion.
Love,
Jimmy
