"Encore."

It's 6:32am and I've woken up naturally. I guess that means it's time to finish writing what I started two days ago.

On graduation day, while waiting to walk out onto the field to wrap up our college careers, the acquaintance beside me asked where I wanted to be in the future. I didn't know then, and I still don't know now, but I did have an honest answer to his question:

"...so where do you see yourself in ten years?"
"Happy."

Happy. Lately, I'm feeling like it's not as simple as I described it to be.

There is a fundamental tension within me. On one hand, I feel an obligation to take the blessings that I have been given and make the most of them--to bless others in fantastic and extraordinary ways. On the other, I want to be content, to be satisfied, to be joyful. Those two things aren't supposed to be at odds.

"If money weren't a factor, and you could make a living just teaching dance for the rest of your life, could you be happy?"
...
"...not if it would keep me from blessing people."

We were driving by the Palo Alto-EPA border when she asked me this. I answered carefully, but memory fails me right now. Perhaps I used imprecise words, and instead of saying what I meant, said "not if it kept me from doing great things" or something similarly overblown.

I suppose my words were interpreted to say that I can't be satisfied with a simple life, that I will always be yearning for some greater form of service to the world. When I answered, though, I think I was interpreting the question a little bit differently. I thought I was being asked to make a choice to settle on something that brought me joy but had little impact on the world. A choice like that seemed, to me, self-indulgent; while I knew I'd be content with it, I couldn't help feeling like it would be a selfish choice, and that God has something grander planned for me.

I didn't want to cop out by doing something that just makes me happy.

...I didn't want to cop out by doing something that just makes me happy.

There's a subtlety in the way I answered. Perhaps those who know me are smart enough to dismiss it as nothing more than a qualifier. I said "not if it would keep me," and I meant it exactly as I said it--that I need to know that it's where God wants me to be, and not just something that I'm doing to remain content.

Right now I don't know where I'm supposed to be. I know that I take joy in blessing others, but that's about it. And for all my grandiose talk about being a mover of capital and a maker of movements, all I know for certain is that I want to be there with open hands and an open heart to receive what God calls me to do.

I'm scared, though. I'm scared that I will either go on to fulfill some wild ambition and still wind up dissatisfied, or that I will forego it altogether and find that I have been selfish, burying the talents that I have been given instead of multiplying them.

...Right now I'm wondering what joy looks like. The image that comes to mind is one in which we are sitting about a living room, sipping tea and speaking words of healing upon another. And the people that leave that room know that they are in true fellowship, and have the strength to love.

And their light draws others in, so that more homes may someday be opened up to the hurting in the same manner. The homes will be different, built upon different memories, different families. But they change people's lives, not just their livelihoods.

...and I can't help but wonder if I'm driving away the very people who would share that vision by talking too much of great movements and grandiose plans...