Get Busy Livin', Or Get Busy Dyin'

Note: At my job, I created and maintained a web site of centralized information and made the homepage somewhat of a verbal canvas. Here is the parting shot I left them with.

That's one of my most favorite lines from The Shawshank Redemption. If you've never seen it, do yourself a favor this weekend and get familiar with it and it's messages.

It's time for this caged bird to fly. Not that being 'caged' at my company was necessarily a bad thing. I have had the honor to spend six years working with a team that was highly supportive, very fun, understanding almost to a fault, and most of all, good company to spend one's time with.

But all good things must come to an end, eh? And so it is for me. My co-workers have been a part of my life, in one way or another, during these formative years. Many of them have seen me transition from a fresh college graduate, to a late-twenties idealist to a homeowner and now a man at the threshold of his 30's ready to find out what life has in store for him now the he's grown up. I have no idea what lies ahead.

But that's the whole idea.

Comfort zones are a funny thing. As humans we naturally gravitate toward them, their security, their familiarity, their safety. And if we aren't careful, we forget to push the boundaries of those comfort zones; we lose track of the importance of stretching ourselves; we forget that we are designed to adapt. Risk is a great element of life. It makes us feel alive and brings into very sharp focus the idea that our lease on life is short. Almost too short.