A couple of years ago I made an amazing
discovery. It was about 3:00 am, I was taking a redeye flight from California
back to Washington DC and I was caught somewhere between being asleep, and
being awake - not the most fertile time to think deep thoughts, but I got lucky. As I was
being bounced around, groggy and uncomfortable, I figured out the true definition of wisdom.
I'm not claiming to have learned how to split an atom here, but I thought it was a
pretty good find just the same. Let me back up for a moment and tell you how I found it.
About fifteen years ago, while entertaining a couple of friends with stories about
one of my many trips, one of my friends asked me, "Why don't you write these
stories down?" It seemed like an interesting
thing to do, and with about 50 business trips a year to write about, a great idea was hatched.
From that day forward I have kept a journal of all my travels, which is now well over
1,500 pages long. When I began it, I figured I
would be able to capture some of the adventures I was living as a Road Warrior. I had no
idea that the biggest benefit of all was yet to be discovered from this simple little
exercise in writing. You see, my journal was
about to teach me about my life.
When I began my entries, I would comment on what was before me, what I could see
and what I could remember. However, the more I wrote about these events, the more
I questioned what was before me, what I saw and how I remembered it. It helped me
to discover and learn from what I was living and not to simply comment on it. |
