Tonight, I went on an unexpected car ride. I was retrieving my wallet from a restaurant I had been to less than an hour earlier. It was a 15 minute drive. As I re-traced my steps, I began to think about how many other times I had taken this road. It was the same way I had driven to my last workplace, Avaya.

For over six years, I took this same route. On the highway briefly, just enough to get some speed and forget where I was for a few minutes, then off at the Broomfield ramp. The exit ramp is steep and makes me feel like I’ve climbed a sand dune to reach the top. I turn left over the highway, on a road that makes no bones that it is meant to get traffic back and forth across the overpass. It is engineered to make cars feel like they are traversing a giant erector set. It is an ugly road, with little decency or civility.

Then left again, onto an entrance ramp that loops around and begins a road that is too narrow and crowded with small businesses for the speed of the cars traveling it. It reminds me of a road in New Jersey, where I lived nearly 20 years ago, Route 22. I’m sure you’ve seen these roads, where businesses have cropped up and inserted themselves with no consideration of what it looks or feels like to the travelers.

Even in the drudgery of driving such a road this evening, I waxed nostalgic. I sometimes think that I have taken an extended hiatus from the rest of my career as a loyal employee and corporate citizen. Then I remember who I am now. It has been a testament to having faith in myself that I am still in business, after three years.

Now my challenge is to have faith in life and God. I don’t know where I’m headed or how much time I have left to do the work that I’m meant to do. I only know that I can get discouraged at how hard it is to shape my own path. In the struggle, I am fully alive.

When I was an employee, I struggled as well. But it was an illusion that it brought me alive. It only brought me more tension, more numbness to life around me. There was a completion at the end of the day that felt empty—only to be filled with more problems the next day. As an engineer, I reveled in problem-solving. Only it was solution without creativity. It was resolution without playfulness. It was brute force instead of ease.

Like Route 22 in New Jersey, I was traveling a road that lacked beauty or grace. Much of my previous life as an employee was a road full of empty distractions and cars going too fast to enjoy the ride. I was only concerned about getting to the destination. Period.

Now, I want to read the road signs and imagine that I will stop at one of these small businesses to see if anyone is really inside, waiting for a customer to walk in. I want to find the freshness in what looks tired day after day. I want to walk this road instead of
drive it.