Those of us who are young- and mid-career professionals, who scurry each day into the swirling currents of commuters, we find ourselves out on a different sort of horizon. Despite appearances, we are trying to get by in a world that is markedly unlike the one that surrounded our parents when they were our age. The Baby Boomers grew up in a time that was overwhelmingly defined by two opposing world powers. They boasted 30-year company careers and enjoyed wildly expanding opportunities for wealth. And for families that don’t fit the Boomer profile, our parents might still be links to a different time than our own. Those differences might relate to culture, class, or the country they called home.
Regardless of the world that our parents knew, everything in the one we are inheriting is up for question, more fluid, more subject to change. Jobs. Money. Technology. Climate. Borders. Even our identities. In the face of so much change, our future can feel uncertain. The same assumptions our parents had for how one makes a “good life” do not necessarily translate to our reality. We know that material things—the car, the house, the clothes, the gadgets—help us take care of our basic needs. But if we are honest with ourselves, we know that those things can’t, by themselves, give us a sense of real fulfillment. And in a world this fluid, those things can come and go quickly. We need something that lasts.
I believe that we have opportunities to find lasting meaning in each moment of our journey. It happens when we really pay attention each day to the stories right in front of us, the images that call us to be witnesses to their unfolding. Maybe it’s the sleepy-eyed young woman who sells you your morning coffee. Or the white sun breaking over skyline. Or the desperate friend staring at you from across the table. Or the small boy who watches, unblinking, the construction worker repairing the water main. There are shiny moments, and darker ones, too.
If we listen and observe, we have the power to distill the essential truths of living from our own direct experience. And when we do that, it connects us with something Divine, something wonderfully mysterious that nourishes us beyond a place of mere happiness or sadness. My mission is to share some of the notes on my journey that may resonate with your own. To find moments of meaning beyond the cubicle.
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