Lost six paragraphs, so now to summarize...

Someday I'll figure out what lazy left-hand motion of mine occasionally serves to select-all, and then erase all unsaved typing!  Whoops.  Maybe it's best that I just list a few bullet points, B-school style, anyway:

1.  Sustainability is good, but organizational behavior is what I'm passionate about.  I want to make people better at what they do and have a chance to effect change one person and/or company at a time, rather than pushing against environmental forces of destruction that are quickly overwhelming our planet.  Not to be bleak, but India and China have only accelerated their fossil fuel consumption, and I don't have the energy to constantly fight against such well-oiled opposition (pun intended) for a living.  Maybe I can be a change agent to better equip those who are already fighting that fight, and doing so with more environmental knowledge than I'll ever have, plus help people in other walks of life, where I can sate my thirst to understand the seemingly disparate parts of the world and make new connections, both socially and intellectually.  I have no reason to doubt myself.

2.  I started playing bass again this week after ignoring it for over six months, and it's like re-activating a limb that I'd forgotten about.  Band or no, bass is a part of my DNA, and I'm less of a person when I don't play.  I've never been so happy to rebuild my callouses.

3.  I found the workout room again, even though I may not be making a big sledgehammer change.  Just doing a few lifts and elliptical is better than the next-to-nothing I've done since August, and though my runs often flag before 30 minutes, I was able to go nearly 50 minutes the day after Christmas, so I know I've still got it in me to control my health.  (This after I just had a bacon-and-lettuce sandwich for lunch today.  But there you go.)

4.  I didn't expect to get a big takeaway out of this collection of Harvard Business Review articles that I've nearly finished reading, but I did.  Namely, that of all the disabilities from which people suffer, the most common and potent disability is fear.  That really resonated with me, as the double-edged sword of my reflective personality has long been to find something to depress myself about at the expense of the wide expanse of good for which to be thankful.

5.  I've gotten better at re-explaining to myself who I am in the course of having to do so around scores of new faces in this new place, around people where my past is not a shared experience of any kind.  Playing my bass keeps me connected, as does social media, but so also does indulging my want to stay connected to a broader world, diving into news articles all across the Internet.

6.  I can re-write six new paragraphs to replace the six I lost and have nothing to lament whatsoever, as I'm fueled by the long view of intellectual compatriots as well as others with expansive concerns.

So much for that bulleted list... my words may not be all that remarkable today, but I keep in mind that most things in life are not graded; they simply lead to other things and those things are what I make of them.  "2011" is an arbitrary marker on the Julian calendar, but that doesn't mean that only arbitrary lives are out there to be led.  As I depend on others, so still others depend on me, and the web of relationships becomes all the more important, all the more central.